• 1) Moody’s Sees Debt Sales at Crisis Levels for Decade

“Governments may take as long as a decade to cut debt issuance back to the levels before global markets seized up following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last year, according to Moody’s Investors Service.”

• 2) Underemployment at 17.5%

“The so-called underemployment rate — which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking — reached a record 17.5 percent from 17 percent in September.”

• 3) Economist Warns: Coming U.S. Bond Default

“The U.S. may have to default on its debt payments after 2019, writes economist Robert Samuelson.

If the deficit spending continues on the current path it will consume 82 percent of gross domestic product within a decade. There will be no wiggle room for tax cuts, and spending cuts may be politically unpalatable, he surmises.”….

“Deprived of international or domestic credit, defaulting countries in the past have suffered deep economic downturns, hyperinflation, or both.”

• 4) Is the Dollar Dying a Slow Death? (From Time.com)

“Another source of stability is the difficulty central banks have disposing of dollars they already hold. Dumping dollars on world markets would only depress its value further, undermining nations’ own reserves. “Central banks will continue to get out of dollars on the margins, but they don’t want to be seen selling dollars hand over fist,” Englander says.”

• 5) Brazil’s Moinho Pacifico Increasing Dollar-Denominated Debt

“Moinho Pacifico Industria e Comercio, Brazil’s largest independent wheat processor, is increasing dollar-denominated debt on bets the real will not weaken against the U.S. currency for the next six months.

“The flow is too strong and there isn’t much the government can do to stop the real,” said Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Pih. Moinho Pacifico now around $20 million in debt and that level may rise to $50 million, he said in an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in Sao Paulo.”

• 6) U.S. backed $4.3 trillion in assets, report says

“LONDON (MarketWatch) — At its high point, the federal government was guaranteeing or insuring $4.3 trillion in face value of financial assets, according to a report released Friday by the Congressional Oversight Panel.”

• 7) Fannie May…up to $200 billion needed

“The Washington-based company, which posted $101.6 billion in losses over the previous eight quarters, has already tapped $44.9 billion from the $200 billion emergency lifeline.

“They’re going to need that $200 billion in capital, if not more, when this thing’s all said and done,” said Paul Miller, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia.”

• Commercial real estate pros say no recovery until 2011

“Respondents said lack of access to debt financing was the No. 1 barrier to recovery, followed by high asking prices and uncertainty about future cash flows.”

• 9) The Commercial Loan Nightmare Facing U.S. Banks (Business Week)

“Banks are in for another ugly year in 2010. But this time the problem will be the big batch of deteriorating commercial real estate loans on their books. That’s because the big banks were operating with the same loose standards—and aggressive behavoir—as the investment banks in order to compete in the real estate market during the boom years. (Read our cover story about why this real estate bust is different.) Commercial real estate loans that banks underwrote and held on their books skyrocketed to approximately $190 billion in 2007, up from $11 billion in a single year, a decade earlier. In all, banks hold some $1.8 trillion of commercial real estate debt on their books.”

Trouble is, nobody knows just what the values of the loans on bank books’ are since they are not required to mark them to market prices”

• 10) U.S. Commercial Property Loans Fall 54%, Bankers Say

“CMBS Defaults

The rate of defaults and late payments on property loans sold as commercial mortgage-backed securities jumped more than fivefold in the third quarter, to 4.52 percent from 0.8 percent a year earlier, according to Reis Inc., a New York-based real estate research firm. About $26.6 billion of CMBS loans were 60 days or more past due.

About $550 billion in outstanding commercial loans are “going badly at a rapid rate” and will lead to the closure of an additional 200 small banks across the U.S., Kenneth Rosen, who heads the University of California’s Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics in Berkeley, said at the ULI conference.”