Greenspan leaves where Volcker did in the middle of a rate raising campaign, hoping to land an economy rather than crash it. The odds against him are getting longer, according to the yield curve, this is the last rate increase before "inversion". What has lead to some increasingly audible jitters is the consensus that there is at least one more coming.

So expect them to have awards heaped on him by right wing institutions and a place on the squawk show circuit next to the other conmen of the right wing - Judith Miller who discovered non-existent WMD, the Dow 36,000 authors, Art Laffer of the Laffer curve and so on. While Exxon makes: record profits - the right wing says "the towel heads did it!" and blames OPEC.

Yes, it is that bad.

Trade, energy and decency are the three economic issues of the next generation. It's easy to explain to people why energy is important, and decency has a powerful moral argument, in addition to having popular programs like Social Security and Medicare as its political face. Trade, however, is the poor step child - unloved by many who are loud in their hatred of corporations and commerce, and misunderstood by millions who depend on it, trade flies in the face of luddite populism and reactionary racism.

But let me boil it down to one issue - a world cannot long be half free, and half unfree.

Now he's dropping the cross hairs on the toothless watch dog which is the Republican Senate, and is about to launch a plan that will cut into the flanks of the wholly-headed mamoth that is the Republican caucus. Once upon a time early Americans hunted small brained pachyderms in North Dakota, and now Senator Byron Dorgan is going to give us an updated version.

And he's going to do it alternating his "gee shucks" nerdy grin, and pounding out the very long list of "these are the facts" in a Sargent Friday demeanor that is going to make compelling television, no matter how hard cable tries to bury it.

There's no nice way to say this: Schmoementum has settled on Connecticut's most famous Senator. He's an embarassment - with poor judgement, and an itching to become the next Zellout Miller of the Senate. It's time to ring down the curtain on this painful play at being a Democrat, and send someone to Washington that will represent the best interests of the American public, and not coincidentally, Connecticut's residents.

Here's five easy lessons on why Ned Lamont is getting coverage, and praise on his possible run for Senate.

This is why the top down media is eagerly doing bin Laden's work, and sowing acrimony within the American body politic - because they are almost out of time, and out of any other options. When the turbluent moment of the economy hits - and it is very soon that it will, either they hold all the power, or they will find themselves on the receiving end of a massive political shock.

On the heals of the reverberations from Al Gore's indictment of Bush, and more poll data supporting impeachment in just such a circumstance - this means that there is now, if not a smoking gun, then GSR spattered all over Spygate.

The New York Times reports on the Tokyo stock exchange's early shut down. It is one of a string of trading scandals, many in Japan. It comes at a time when major market indexes are at or near post-crash peaks, and the economy, we are told, is doing just fine. In fact, we are at the edge of financial crisis, where a series of long term pressure points are going to test the economic management, not just by the US, but by the G-7 as a whole. The prognosis is not good - with a string of right wing governments grabbing power, and committed to creating more asset inflation - they are intent on pouring gasoline on the fire.

[Geekier version here.]

An American helicopter crashed north of Baghdad this morning, apparently after being shot down by insurgents.

It was the third crash of an American helicopter this month. In a statement, the American military said that it had no information about the fate of the two crew members aboard, and that the cause of the crash was being investigated.

But officials at the Iraqi Interior Ministry said that witnesses reported seeing the helicopter being fired on before the crash.

So what does this study mean? Bottom line: we are going to have to remeasure how much carbon sinking trees do versus their methane output. We can't cut down tropical rain forests - they supply oxygen - but we can't simply believe that we can turn ashes back into wood to solve the Global Warming Problem.

[Yes, I'm an environmentalist, and global warming is a major deal. It's something that is in my writing, my economics and my music.]

I concluded that "if the netroots alone can't change the political landscape without the participation of the media and Democratic establishment, then there's no point wasting precious online space blasting away at Republicans while the other sides of the triangle stand idly by."

[Cross posted at Bopnews.com]

Almost a year ago I stated that we had reached the "boom phase" of the current economic expansion - that point where growth is inflationary. Booms run until the pain from inflation gets to be more than the gain from go go expansion. Pain as measured by those actors who can do something about it. When central banks, where they have autonomy, feel pain, they make the economy take the medicine.

Right now the Federal Reserve is feeling some discomfort, but they aren't in pain yet. But the yield curve continues to march towards inversion, and we look back at something I've been writing about for some time: Greenspan's bet, what it is, and whether he has enough chips left as he hands over his seat to Cousin Ben - Ben Bernanke.

["In the year of storms" has been picked up for digital distribution by Music is here and should be available for download soon - Ask iTunes to carry it.]

[Science, economics and art do indeed meet from time to time, at the same time that Emmanuel was watching Katrina grow into the nightmare storm, I was composing a string quartet inspired by "The Year of Storms"]

Within the Democratic Party there is an argument over whether support for impeachment will marginalize the party. It will not, but it has to be handled the right way.

Many are the risks of disruption. To take one salient example, the principal domestic counterpart to the huge US current account deficit is the financial deficit of US households, currently running at an all-time record of more than 7 per cent of gross domestic product. As Wynne Godley, the Cambridge economist, has pointed out, with such a financial deficit, the indebtedness of the household sector must rise continuously. And indeed it has, from 92 per cent of disposable income in the first quarter of 1998 to 126 per cent in the third quarter of last year. That rise in indebtedness has pushed household debt services payments to an all-time high of 14 per cent of disposable incomes, despite today's modest interest rates. What would happen if house prices ceased to rise or interest rates increased? Households would cut back on their borrowing. If they did, how would a sharp US slowdown be avoided?

[Oh yeah, I'm running blogads in support of the CD on the agonist, Juan Cole and Mahablog. A big risk on the blogsphere coming through, I admit...]

It seems like all over the world it is time for prosperity, prosperity, prosperity.

Oh yeah, gold's up a bit, by why worry? Well economists are professional worriers. But the good ones know what to worry about, and what to take advantage of.