"Some Assembly Required" has some "Good News" for Friday

There's so much good stuff out there that it's time to go to "Some Assembly Required" -- here are just a few juicy bits.

as always, please follow link to original.
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Bar Bet: Neuroscientists report finding "few reliable differences between boys' and girls' brains" that would justify same-sex schooling. Yes, adolescents think about sex a lot. But they will do so anywhere, anytime. Remember?

Night of the Long Knives: An email from the Obama for America campaign describes Paul Krugman as "a political rookie." It goes on to blame the "ideologue Left" for complaining about Obama's willingness to sacrifice Medicare, which OFA believes "is a sound political strategy.”

You Are There: Let's see, the financial system is more leveraged today than during the Tech Bubble, mutual funds are more into stocks than at any time in the last 40 years, the global economy is slowing sharply, European banks are teetering, and the US recovery has gone AWOL. Should we expect a market correction - or civil unrest, bank holidays, riots and such?

Sure Thing: Ms. Bachmann claims she will bring back $2.00 a gallon gasoline. Interesting. Petroleum is a global commodity. While I'm sure she would cripple the US economy, the only reliable way to bring down the price that far would be a world wide depression.

Cutting Medicare/Medicaid, would deprive the largest health-care providers and insurers of easy profits...

Near Miss: The Philadelphia Fed's manufacturing index came in 8 standard deviations below the expert consensus estimate. It reinforces the negative report in the NY Fed's Empire Index earlier this week. The CPI numbers, at 0.5%, reflects the same big bump that the PPI reported earlier. (Although the gasoline price blip – half the increase - has now gone away.) Initial employment claims, at 408,000 were worse than expected, too. T-bills are at 70 year lows, mortgage rates are at 50 year lows and sales of existing houses were down 3.5% m/m. Gold closed the day at $1,822 and reached $1,870 overnight.