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Chile's Chaiten volcano has been placed under red alert due to an increase in seismic activity for three weeks, the Chilean government said.The volcano in southern Chile became active in May 2008 after being dormant for more than 9,000 years.Volcanic activity was on the decline in the past few months until picking back up January 21, the Chilean Interior Ministry said in a news release Monday.The red alert, which indicates activity is above normal levels and an eruption could be imminent, was enacted in large part to protect tourists in the area, said Carmen Fernandez, director of Chile's National Emergency Office.Underground seismic rumblings 1.2 to 5 miles (2 to 8 kilometers) deep in the area around the volcano and constant gas eruptions in the dome indicate "a high grade of instability," the National Emergency Office said.

Global stocks were mixed Friday, with European shares paring earlier gains after preliminary data showed the euro zone economy's recovery faltered in the fourth quarter, on top of investors still uncertain as to what will happen to Greece. Experts told CNBC that given Greece's troubles, investors should get out of stocks and bonds and into something safer, like cash.

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies by saying "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda." Brennan writes that, "Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill." In the oped, titled "'We need no lectures': Administration disrupts terrorists' plots, takes fight to them abroad," Brennan writes that politics "should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe." The administration op-ed is in response to a USA Today editorial entitled "National security team fails to inspire confidence; Officials' handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour." Brennan provides a detailed defense of the administration's handling of failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whom, he says, was "thoroughly interrogated and provided important information." He suggests that many critics are hypocritical and clueless.

The United Nations' expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world's mountain tops on a student's dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week's congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all. Wednesday's hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

If we are to believe senator Harry Reid (see video below), the taxation system in the United States is voluntary. Reid admits that if you don't pay your cut to the government you will be fined or arrested and imprisoned, but the system is voluntary in the sense that you are allowed to file tax forms. Other countries, says Reid, just take your money without this formality.

Treasury said it is working closely with Congress to raise the ceiling. The Senate has approved legislation to increase it by $1.9 trillion to $14.3 trillion. A ceiling that high would equal about $45,000 for every American. The House is expected to vote on the increase Thursday.

San Jose State economics professor Jeffrey Rogers Hummel tells all his students that the easiest way to understand the Federal Reserve is to think of it as a giant, legalized counterfeiter. I had always known that the Fed and other central banks were like counterfeiters, but I still thought that the actual mechanics of open-market operations and so forth actually provided some important distinctions.

The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape during the recession than known at the time. Click here for a Bloomberg Multimedia interactive visual analysis of the economy's job losses.

A lot of people are very upset about the rapidly increasing U.S. national debt these days and they are  demanding a solution. What they don't realize is that there simply is not a solution under the current U.S. financial system. It is now mathematically impossible for the U.S. government to pay off the U.S. national debt. You see, the truth is that the U.S. government now owes more dollars than actually exist. If the U.S. government went out today and took every single penny from every single American bank, business and taxpayer, they still would not be able to pay off the national debt. And if they did that, obviously American society would stop functioning because nobody would have any money to buy or sell anything.