Links 2/26/11

More like this

One of the really difficult things for me to comprehend is why the idea of 'Fiscal Austerity' is so popular among politicians, especially too many Democratic ones, when Fiscal Austerity will lead to high unemployment.
As with history in general, I suppose the victors write--or rewrite--economic history too. One of the arguments for balancing budgets that's floating around is that Clinton got us a surplus, times were good, and therefore, we should do it again.
The headline: href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/10/AR2007081001204.html">Federal Deficit Sharply Lower.
Before I get into the meat of the post, if, after reading this, you end up obsessing over trade deficits too, then I've failed (just wanted to make that clear).