Important participant in democracy Jeb Bush took to some Chamber of Commerce summit on Wednesday and asked: What awful thing has capitalism ever done to anyone that Barack Obama wants to criminalize it so badly?  “‘I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism,’ he said, according to LegalNewsOnline.com. Bush paused a moment, then acknowledged: ‘That’ll make the news.’” The Bush progeny has become self-aware. Run.  [CNN Political Ticker]

YOU ARE ALL RICH SO STOP COMPLAINING: The economy grew at a 3.5% pace last quarter, with cash-for-clunkers helping boost durable good spending 22.3% and a federal tax credit for homebuyers increasing housing spending 23.4%. Now that members of the upper-middle class all have new cars and homes, the dough should be trickling down to the rest of us any day. [NYT]

So it seems like fewer people are performing Google searches with the term “economic depression.” Or maybe it’s the same amount of people, but they’re searching less frequently? Ha ha, no one’s sure! Anyway, what does this statistic mean for America? Everything, essentially. And this is not just because a majority of Americans have been forced to sell or mortgage their Googles. In fact, college-educated Larry Summers believes this means that things are looking up. You see, earlier this year there were four times as many searches for the term, and now there are less, and therefore causality. It’s science. Google it. MORE »

Okay this explains basically everything written on Wonkette for the past few months. Ron Paul is getting himself a little following among his colleagues on the Hill, see? He’s been throwing fancy weekly luncheons for a dozen-ish of his minions to discuss the exciting lunch-hour topic of Austrian economic theory (laissez faire/sound money/central bank causes inflation/FREEDOM!). And who, who is his prized pupil? Michele Bachmann! Ron Paul loves her because she’s a good studier! OH MY. MORE »

Here is a rather low-budget rip of “war correspondent” Michele Bachmann crying with Sean Hannity over how everyone makes fun of her for raising issues that literally do not exist. The actual elected Congressional legislator has judiciously spent her time introducing a constitutional amendment “to prohibit the President from entering into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States,” because she thinks the United States is trying to replace the dollar. Again: she thinks the United States is trying to replace the dollar, as its currency. MORE »

Anyone know what Meghan McCain is promoting, now that she’s in the news and on the teevee shows and doing the Tina Brown monster website thing? Here are two clips from just the past 24 hours, and they’re bad, man, they are BAAAAAD… And yet so funny? MORE »

Hey people cheer up! Your Nate Silver, that mathbot you all loved so much until the election was over, has persisted with his math and numbers to this very day. Most of the time he just worries about that whole boring sordid Franken/Coleman mess in Wasilla. But maybe because Depression reporting is such a “hot trend,” he has written about what the chances are we will actually enter one of these depression thingums in the near future. MORE »

Barack Obama will have so many advisors telling him how to spend the nation’s billions! Let’s see, we’ve got this Geithner guy who financial types seem to like, and also the communist Larry Summers … who else? To answer these pressing questions, Obama will hold another press conference and respond to complicated financial inquiries with “I will buy you all a new puppy.” Stick with us! His magical press conference is due to commence at the top of the hour. MORE »

Did you know that Barack Obama is packing his economic advisory team with known communist associates? It’s true! Larry Summers, Obama’s likely head of the National Economic Council, had to resign from the presidency of Harvard University in 2006 for the grievous crime of being an asshole. After that he went to work part-time for the D.E. Shaw Group, a big fancy hedge fund run by intellectuals. D.E. Shaw “was founded in a small office over a communist bookstore in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1988.” COMMUNISTS EVERYWHERES, Q.E.D. When will Barack Obama apologize for this latest unseemly association? (Thank you, Thomas, for the tip!) [Wall Street Journal]

Here’s a frightening math chart from the mathies at Calculated Risk putting that record 2.8% October retail sales decline in perspective. (As if a record drop in consumer spending needed more perspective!) Sales are down 8.8% on a year-over-year basis, which may just strike you as, “bah, some dumb number,” but this graph shows that that is what we call a “free fall.” MORE »

The New York Times‘ Nobel laureate beardclown Paul Krugman has quite a Keynes Boner in this morning’s column. He wants the Obama administration to flood as much money as possible into the government and not to be dandies about Debt. You know that famous socialist president FDR? Well he was a pussy: “One of these prejudices is the fear of red ink. In normal times, it’s good to worry about the budget deficit — and fiscal responsibility is a virtue we’ll need to relearn as soon as this crisis is past. When depression economics prevails, however, this virtue becomes a vice. F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget in 1937 almost destroyed the New Deal.” Sure! If the Chinese will pay for Obama’s non-lame New Deal, then hey, why not, rock ‘n’ roll, where’s my refundable tax credit already? [NYT]