Marketplace Scratch Pad

Morning Reading

Scott Jagow Nov 24, 2009

Good morning. You can almost smell the turkey, can’t you? Just a couple more days. In the meantime, there’s work to be done:

Deficits are killing us (Wall Street Journal):

For anyone who wondered if last winter’s federal seizure of the financial services industry would have adverse economic consequences, an answer is now available. The credit market has been tilted to favor a single borrower with a huge appetite for money, Washington. Private borrowers, particularly small businesses, have been sent to the end of the queue.

No, deficits are saving us! (The Nation):

While he was in China, Barack Obama made a bizarre declaration that the US government must reduce its budget deficits in order to avoid “a double-dip recession.” The remark was alarming because it suggests the president may not fully understand the country’s economic predicament. Deficit spending is a cure for our troubles, not the cause.

Is the jobs disaster Obama’s Katrina? (Huffington Post):

…the administration’s wrongheaded approach is a classic inside job. Sen. Sherrod Brown summed it up on CNN, telling John King that when it comes to putting the focus on Main Street, the president’s “advisors are mixed.”

Which makes one wonder: what level of unemployment would it take to unmix them?

The tide is turning on regulation (The New Republic) Something I pointed out the other day:

Something strange and a little disorienting is happening in the fight to reform Wall Street: It looks like the reformers are actually starting to win.

This is not something you could have said as recently as six weeks ago.

A Chinese-owned GM. It could happen. (CNN Money)

Summers dead wrong on the cause of the crisis (Economists for firing Larry Summers) Didn’t realize such a site existed.

Across the US, shaky signs of economic recovery emerge (PBS NewsHour):

Oprah’s ending her show. What do you think? (The Onion) I love The Onion:

Shouldn’t someone tell her that this is not exactly the economic climate in which to be out of a job?”

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