As the swine flu death toll in Mexico mounts and U.S. officials go into pandemic mode, we learn that — surprise, surprise — the Republicans decided we didn’t need any of that silly pandemic preparedness and stripped $900 million out of the stimulus bill that had been earmarked for just that. And the Democrats let them.
Partial results of the inproperly calibrated, impossible to fail Stress Tests may be made public. As Ryan Avent points out, it isn’t promising that there seems to be some indecision regarding what is released:
The Geithner authorized bank Stress Tests are the economic equivalent of a high school football coach padding the grades of his players so that they can all play in the next big game. Unfortunately for the team, a few of the players have died. But that doesn’t stop Coach from dressing them in uniform and propping their bodies up on the bench next to the Gatorade cooler.
Those dirty hippies at the Michigan chapter of the ACLU are at it again. This time they’re claiming that being poor is not a crime in America, the silly, deluded fools.
Or so sayeth Moody’s, they of the questionable ratings practices. Moody’s tends to lag behind when it comes to downgrading ratings so this “substantial increase” of near-defaulters might be padded with companies that have been in trouble for a longer period of time but were just downgraded. But the news is still grim.
It is ridiculous to expect every politician to have an in depth knowledge of economics. There are experts for that, people who can (and should) be consulted before said politician goes on television and makes a statement regarding the economy. Or the politician can refrain from making an economic statement in front of reporters. Either method wil help prevent looking like an idiot.
Megan McArdle’s blog posts remind me of the earthworms they gave us in 8th-grade biology: dissection is intuitively easy, even without helpful diagrams.
Obama’s speech before Congress was satisfactory but not spectacular. It was erudite and engaging, sprinkled with populist phrases and encouraging enough to keep the market from going into a free-fall. Variations of the word responsible were used a dozen times. A metaphorical finger was wagged at the banking industry. Health care, energy and education got top billing. But the speech came up lacking on specifics- perhaps by design.
Via Think Progress, we learn that CNBC’s Rick Santelli, he of the unhinged “how dare you stop us from screwing the economy” rant, is now fearing for his life:
Not long ago, RNC Chairman Michael Steele let fly with the fairly unhinged contention that working for the government didn’t count as a “real job”. Well, turns out that Steele’s ridiculous attempt to redefine “employment” wasn’t simply an embarassing gaffe — it’s an actual conservative talking point. The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle, who is to political thought what outer space is to oxygen, got into it with economist Dean Baker the other day and tried this line of thought out on him. The results are amusing…
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