Idiocy Reigns Supreme Today, with One Exception

I still don't get why The New York Times continues to let Bob Herbert fill up space on their editorial page.  His simplistic writing style and solutions to the country's problems make Thomas Friedman look like Einstein.  Case in point in a few excerpts from his column today:

Look out the window. More and more Americans are being left behind in an economy that is being divided ever more starkly between the haves and the have-nots.

Standards of living for the people on the wrong side of the economic divide are being ratcheted lower and will remain that way for many years to come.

For a variety of reasons, there are not enough tax revenues being generated to pay for the basic public services that one would expect in an advanced country like the United States. The rich are not shouldering their fair share of the tax burden.

The U.S. cannot cut its way out of this crisis. Instead of trying to figure out how to keep 4-year-olds out of pre-kindergarten classes, or how to withhold life-saving treatments from Medicaid recipients, or how to cheat the elderly out of their Social Security, the nation’s leaders should be trying seriously to figure out what to do about the future of the American work force.

Enormous numbers of workers are in grave danger of being left behind permanently.

Congratulations for recycling yourself Bob and pointing out that we are in a large economic downturn.  So what's your solution besides demonizing the rich? Restructuring the public sector to make it more sustainable even in the face of falling tax revenue?  Realize that the benefits and social programs politicians assured to the less well-off may have been empty promises for the sake of buying votes?  Getting rid of government regulation and interference in the economy that stifles job creation and entrepreneurship?

Oh no, Bob has found the perfect solution to solve all our problems:

New ideas on a grand scale are needed.

There you have it folks!!  All we need is ideas and then finally jobs will be created.  Too bad a sixth grader could have come up with the same solution.  In all seriousness though, many of the NY Times editorial writers propose what they think are plausible solutions.  Krugman and his trillion dollar stimulus package, Friedman and his "green job" investments modeled after China, and Maureen Dowd and her constant criticism of Republicans.  What does Bob Herbert, who writes for arguably the most prestigious newspaper in the world come up with?  Ideas.  That's it.

In other idiotic news, the Egyptian government approved a 15% pay raise for its employees.  This move is meant to appease the people.  One would think that a country protesting a dictatorship wouldn't want to see government officials to increase their salary.  It's common sense, but according to Zerohedge.com, 70% of employees in Egypt work for the government.  Not sure if I believe that.

Now for some sanity, in an interview with "Libertad Digital," Mish lays out how he defines inflation and deflation, the race to the bottom central banks around the world are engaged in, and how intense our global economy is:

Fears of rampant inflation in the US are misguided. Yes, the Fed is “printing” but so is China, the ECB, the UK and for that matter everyone else. China is the real culprit regarding commodity prices and inflation.

It’s important to have an understanding of what inflation is. Here is my definition: “Inflation is a net expansion of money supply and credit, with credit marked-to-market”.

“Deflation is a net contraction of money supply and credit, with credit marked-to-market”.

That last phrase “marked-to-market” explains the US stock market rally nicely. Credit never expanded, but Bernanke reignited the junk bond market and bonds banks were holding went from “priced for bankruptcy” to “good as gold”.

This happened even though credit card debt, consumer loans, home equity loans, and consumer debt in general still continue to contract.

This helps explain the recovery in financial assets but not the real economy or jobs. In contrast, prices are soaring in China along with unsustainable levels of credit expansion. Those who focus on prices as well as those who focus solely on money supply both miss the boat.

Greenspan ignored rapidly expanding credit in the housing bubble years. China is doing the same now.

In China, credit is expanding at 35% a year with GDP rising less than a third of that. That is a distinct sign of an overheating economy. India is in the same inflation boat with China.
Australia is dependent on commodity demand from China.

It should be easy to see what happens to Australia when China slows. Notice I said “slows”. There is a good chance China crashes. Moreover, Australia faces a double whammy because its property bubble is starting to implode now.

Those paragraphs should explain how interconnected and unbalanced the global economy is.

 In more irrelevant and hilarious news, it has just been announced that Keith Olbermann is moving to Al Gore's Current TV channel.  And no, the fact that Al Gore has a TV channel isn't the funny part.

Upon hearing the news, Rush Limbaugh decided to weight (more like weight) in:

“They’re paying Olbermann in carbon credits,” “they don’t have any money to pay Olbermann.”

 While I am pretty sure Gore has money (upon leaving the Vice Presidency, if someone isn't set financially for the rest of their life, they really screwed up) you gotta admire Rush's humor.

Update- This is great: Gary North lays out how home schooling can be done provides links to various tools in order to do it.  Many of the things North has up on his site are not free, so for him to give this away is awesome.