Economics

Talk about nervous.  Assistant Treasury Secretary Phillip Swagel seems to have been the only guy in town the other day after the latest bad employment report came out.  So he had to give the press conference.  Watch the video associated with the Washington Post column by Dana Milbank.  Couldn't have been more nervous if he was 16 at his first job interview.

$206 Million dollars found stashed in a home in Mexico City (right). Here is the full AP story.

Walking around money, I suppose. In case you get the munchies and the ATM is closed.

A Washington Post article today anticipates Bush will call for a balanced budget by 2012 in his upcoming State of the Union address. Many are called but few are balanced.

A sidebar shows a figure from the OMB indicating the current deficit is not so large by historical standards, only -1.8% of the gross domestic product. The WWII (with a peak of -30%!) and the Reagan years were much worse.

Stephen Colbert: “Do they give a Noble Prize for throwing your own feces?”

Dr. Peter Agre: “That's the Economics prize.”

- Oct. 19, 2006 episode of the Colbert Report

Note: Doctor Peter Agre won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and offered to trade it (his Nobel Prize Medal) for two weeks hosting the Colbert Report. Agre is also a member of Scientists and Engineers for America, an activist organization concerned with the role of science in government decision-making.

The NY Times ran an article the other day on the home value bubble, the gist being that home prices really are way up:

Housing Boom & Bust

Is it a bubble, or has something fundamental changed? Could be both. Housing has for years been less expensive in the US compared to Europe or Japan. Maybe globalization is leveling that out a bit. OTOH, Chinese investments in the US have kept the money supply here in fairly good shape. Eventually they will call in their markers, the dollar may drop and domesting lending may dry up further busting the home market bubble.