Ministry of Plenty

A new look at the banking sector shows huge losses in the first quarter of 2008. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which insures bank deposits up to $100,000, reported that U.S. financial institutions earned $19.3 billion in the quarter, down 46 percent from $35.6 billion in the first quarter of 2007.

Earlier this year, the FDIC began trying to lure roughly 25 retirees like Holloway back to prepare for an increase in bank failures. It’s also hiring about 75 new staff.

Increasing numbers of women and elderly people are taking advantage of a scheme in one of America's wealthiest cities that enables the homeless to sleep safely in their cars at night.

Fidencio Alvarez abandoned his bean and corn farm in southern Honduras because of the rising cost of seeds, fuel and food. After months of one meal a day, he hiked with his wife and six children to find work in the city.

Who are the new leaders influencing economic and political agendas around the world? What will life be like in America, Europe, Japan, or China in the year 2020?

In this slow economy, even banks are feeling the pinch. The FDIC shut down one northwest Arkansas bank system. Arkansas National Bank, that had nine branches in the Bentonville area was shut down Friday.

"The terrorist catastrophes in New York and Washington swept away media comment on other global events taking place on September 11, 2001. Virtually obscured on that historic agreement reached in Lima, Peru by the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States (OAS) on the Inter-American Democratic Charter. –Lou Dobbs, CNN

The basic infrastructure all of us depend on every day – including aviation, highway, public transit and rail – is falling apart and needs a proper flushing, if we could find a public water system that worked properly.

Prices for cornmeal and rice have doubled in Somalia since January, and on Monday food riots wracked the Somalian city of Mogadishu. Thousands of people protested the insane prices for staple foods, and eventually police shot and killed two protesters. Earlier this year, food riots broke out in the African nation of Senegal as well. What's causing these conditions, which sound like the precursors to the apocalyptic food-shortage flick Soylent Green?

Author Raj Patel explains what is behind the global food crisis and who is profiting from it. NAM Editor Sandip Roy interviewed Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System."