Barack Obama may seem calm when he talks about the eurozone crisis, but behind the scenes the financial times reports there is morbid fear about a meltdown in europe, and vice president Biden is heading to greece amidst austerity marches as part of the administration's attempts to quell the panic. But how does what happens in europe affect the Americans at home? It may boild down to the banks. With the housing market back to 2003 price levels, the US banking sector cannot afford more asset write downs from european debt. It is being hit on the one side by a slumping US economy and housing market, and on the other by Europe's debt problems. So how have these banks put us all in this position, and why haven't regulators done anything to fix the problem? Well, a senate hearing on MF Global's failure and collapse is looking into one of these regulators...the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). We speak to independent analyst and entrepreneurial investor Reggie Middleton, of Boombustblog.com, to get his take on all of this,
and on why he thinks Goldman Sachs -- the "vampire squid" of Matt Taibbi's famous Rolling Stone Article -- may be the one of the most leveraged and dangerous banks on the chopping block after MF Global.Also covered, some of the lighter stories of the day, including a new baby tax that a london restaurant has started charging customers. It is a 3 pound baby tax which costs a little under five dollars. McDain's restaurant in Monroeville, PA, has taken this a step further already and banned all children under the age of 6 entirely. We also provide viewers with a list of the top 10 most shoplifted items in the US according to a recent study. Source