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BILL MOYERS: The global meltdown has become so enormous, volatile and dangerous, that the Director of the CIA told reporters this week President Obama now receives a daily top secret briefing on the national security implications of the worldwide recession. That comes on the heels of an earlier warning to Congress from the Director of National Intelligence who said global economic chaos has replaced terrorism as America's number one threat.

DENNIS BLAIR: Economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they are prolonged for a one-to-two- year period, and instability can loosen the fragile hold that many developing countries have on law and order, which can spill out in dangerous ways into the international community.

BILL MOYERS: Hoping to stave off that chaos, the Treasury today took steps to shore up the failing giant Citigroup -- so poorly managed and so deeply in debt the US government is quadrupling its stake in the bank, and shaking up the board of directors. It's the third time since October the government has stepped in to pull the bank -- considered too big to let die -- back from the grave.

Remember when economists poked fun at Ronald Reagan's voodoo economics? Well, now they are dead serious about so-called "zombie banks" - financial giants like Citigroup and Bank of America whose debts are greater than their assets, with stock worth less than zero, and they're only able to stay alive by devouring federal bailout bucks. Those banks, in turn, are terrified by talk that the government might come in and nationalize them. Well, some critics ask, why not? Given all this, I wanted to talk to a man with a clear-eyed perspective on the worldwide economic impact of this banking crisis. Robert Johnson was once the Chief Economist of the Senate Banking Committee under the chairmanship of that fiercest of budget pit-bulls, the late Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire. Johnson became a Managing Director at Soros Fund Management, and now serves on a United Nations Commission recommending reforms of the international monetary and financial system.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL.