This is your location for one stop shopping for the most bearish sentiment.
Zerohedge.
"The emerging markets "story" has once again been exposed as a pyramid of piffle. The EM edifice has come crashing down as their underlying balance of payments weaknesses have been exposed first by the yen’s slide and  then by the threat of Fed tightening. China has flipflopped from  berating Bernanke for too much QE in 2010 to warning about the negative impact of tapering on emerging markets! It is a mystery to me why anyone, apart  from the activists that seem to inhabit western central banks, thinks QE could  be the solution to the problems of the global economy. But in temporarily papering over the cracks, they have allowed those cracks to become immeasurably deep crevasses. At  the risk of being called a crackpot again, I repeat my forecasts of 450 for the  S&P, sub-1% US 10y yields and gold above $10,000."

Economist's View
Mark says:
"My view on whether this  problem will correct itself:
 
I’ve never favored redistributive policies, except to correct distortions in the distribution  of income resulting from market failure,
political power, bequests and other  impediments to fair competition and equal opportunity. I’ve always believed that  the best approach is to level the  playing field so that everyone has an equal  chance. If we can do that – an  ideal we are far from presently – then we should  accept the outcome as fair. Furthermore, under this approach, people are  rewarded according to their contributions, and economic growth is likely to be  highest.

But increasingly I am of the view that even if we could level the domestic playing field, it still won’t solve our wage stagnation and inequality problems. 

We’ve given self-correction mechanisms 40 years to solve the problem of growing  inequality, and the result has been even more inequality. ... Some people say education is the answer, but we have been trying to reform education  for decades, yet the problems remain. The idea that a fix for education is just  around the corner is wishful thinking.

If we want to preserve a growing and socially healthy economy, and avoid  moving to lower growth points on the inequality curve, then we will need to do much more redistribution of income than we have done over the last several  decades. We must ensure that the rising economic tide lifts all boats, not just the yachts. That means the wealthy will no longer get it all, they will be asked  to share economic growth with the workers who helped to bring it about, workers who ought to be rewarded for their growing productivity.

 We can expect considerable protest when the wealthy are asked to give up a portion of the growth that has been flowing exclusively to them for so long, and we’ll hear every reason you can think of and a few more as to why redistributive  polices are bad for America. But sharing economic gains among all those who had  a hand in creating them is the right thing to do. For the
foreseeable future,  redistributive polices appear to be the only way to ensure that workers receive  their share of the growing economic pie.

Many of the policies enacted during and after the Great Depression  not only addressed economic problems but also directly or indirectly  reduced the ability of special interests to capture the political  process. Some of the change was due to the effects of the Depression  itself, but polices that imposed regulations on the financial sector,  broke up monopolies, reduced inequality
through highly progressive  taxes, and accorded new powers to unions were important factors in  shifting the balance of power toward the typical household.

But  since the 1970s many of these changes have been reversed. Inequality has reverted to levels unseen since the Gilded Age, financial regulation  has waned, monopoly power has increased, union power has been lost, and  much of the disgust with the political process revolves around the  feeling that politicians are out of touch with the interests of the  working class.
 
We need a serious discussion of this issue,  followed by changes that shift political power toward the working class.  But who will start the conversation? Congress has no interest in doing  so; things are quite lucrative as they are. Unions used to have a voice,  but they have been all but eliminated as a political force. The press  could serve as the gatekeeper, but too many news outlets are  controlled  by the very interests that the press needs to confront. Presidential  leadership could make a difference, but this president does not seem  inclined to take a strong stand on behalf of the working class...
 
Another option is that the working class will say enough is enough and demand  change.  There was a time when I would have scoffed at the idea of a mass  revolt against  entrenched political interests and the incivility that  comes with it. We aren’t
there yet – there’s still time for change – but  the signs of unrest are growing, and if we continue along a two-tiered  path that ignores the needs of  such a large proportion of society, it  can no longer be ruled out."


If you want to see a pretty silly critique on this post read Mish.

Brooks:
"But, surely, there has been some ineffable shift in the definition of  dignity. Many men were raised with a certain image of male dignity, which emphasized autonomy, reticence, ruggedness, invulnerability and the competitive virtues. Now, thanks to a communications economy, they find themselves in a world that values expressiveness, interpersonal ease, vulnerability and the 
cooperative virtues.

Surely, part of the situation is that many men simply do not want to put  themselves in positions they find humiliating. A high school student doesn't  want to persist in a school where he feels looked down on. A guy in his 50s  doesn't want to find work in a place where he'll be told what to do by savvy  young things."

Taibbi:
"Hmm. Men don't want to be put in positions they find humiliating? How many  men out there today are working as telemarketers? As collections agents? How  many grown men are working in fast-food restaurants, getting yelled at by people
  like Brooks when they put the wrong McNugget sauce in the take-out bag?

And as for those 50-year-olds not wanting to work in a place where he'll be told what to do by savvy young things – it's the other way around. Usually, the  savvy young things are turning down the older guy. If Brooks thinks there are 50-year-old men out there with families, people maybe facing foreclosure, who  turn down jobs because they don't want to take orders from "savvy young  things," he's crazy. All jobs involve taking humiliating orders from bosses and  everyone who's ever had a job knows that. If you need a job badly enough, you'll  take a job offered by Hermann Goering, Hannibal Lecter, Naomi Campbell, anyone."

Wages need to fall to Eastern European levels, or else production will be moved. Italian firm shifts production to Poland in the night. Coming soon to entire Eurozone. (my thanks to Dan for the link)
Editors note: Brent in his comment below correctly points out that it is productivity adjusted real wages to which I refer. Moreover, for Germany pairwise comparisons with other countries make these wages lower than they would be if they had their own currency because the Euro is an average currency, whose value is lower than the DM would be. For the periphery countries the effect is the opposite and this is what has lead to them importing at an accelerated pace from Germany (exporting their jobs) for much of the last decade. What is more, for good stretches of the last decade real wages in Germany have been declining (exhibiting much of the vaunted labour market flexibility despite an economy with significant union representation). Finally, in trade models with imperfect competition the lowest cost producer may be kept out of the market because an established player prevents them from getting down the cost curve to a an economic level of efficiency. One more potential hurdle confronting the PIIGS wrt to German competition.

Sex and your salary. Does one make the other go up? The protesting author is a post doc. Perhaps, the author is not getting enough....ahem....money.

It looks bright.

Mental health linked to gut bacteria. Time to start eating more natural yogurt.

You know what camp I am in. Here is how the rationalists have rationalized the crash.

This is a surprising reality given that there are so many more males.

Examples abound, but the author calls it the "Julie Taylor Test" from one of my favorite TV shows FNLs.