Showing the ridiculous extent to which Republicans’ opinions on anything are now determined by simply choosing the exact opposite of what Barack Obama says, Rudy Giuliani is now arguing that huge executive compensation unrelated to actual performance is good for the economy. Not only that, but if you try to do something to curb the $18 billion in executive bonuses, many of which came at taxpayer expense, “It really will create unemployment.”

What “Belongs” in the Stimulus?”

The stimulus bill is huge. It’s huge because the macroeconomic situation requires a huge stimulus. The stimulus bill is also multi-faceted. And it needs to be multifaceted because it’s so huge. Targeted tax cuts can be good stimulus, but you can’t do $850 billion of well-targeted tax cuts. Infrastructure can be good stimulus, but you can’t do $850 billion of good infrastructure projects. Long story short, the grab-bag character of the stimulus is a feature rather than a bug.

Here’s a sneak peak at something I’ve been working on for a while. It was supposed to be done about three months ago, so I hope it’ll be worth the wait.

It was a busy week for national economic writing in San Diego’s alternative media world.

Voice of San Diego’s “Nerd’s Eye View” commentator Rich Tuscano wrote a two-part essay arguing against a coming deflationary period (Check out part one and part two). Voice contributor Seth Hettena responded with a lengthy rebuttal, “Why you should bet on deflation.”

Over at The Reader, Don Bauder’s “City Lights” column is on the futility of SEC self-probes, focusing on the case of and one-time SEC investigator (and fired whistleblower) Gary Aguirre and his attempted inquiry into the dealings of John Mack, former chairman of Pequot Capital Management.

• There’s been a little backlash against the Omaha World-Herald after news broke that the paper refused to run a gay couple’s wedding announcement. Since that story ran in The Reader, the Daily Nebraskan ran an editorial, Nebraska StatePaper re-ran The Reader’s story (check those comments) and the Omaha TV News blog drew some attention to the issue as well (by way of my rejected cartoon).

GLAAD reported in August ’08 that 1,049 U.S. newspapers publish same-sex marriage announcements, which is 72 percent of all newspapers. The World-Herald, of course, is not one of those.

One wonders how wise of a business strategy it is to cater to the most small-minded segment of the population. As with racism, sexism and anti-miscegenation, time tends to erase the fears that lead to bigotry, and we live in a society that is becoming increasingly tolerant of homosexuality. So when we reach a point where gay couples are treated with the same respect as straight couples, what will papers like the World-Herald have left? It’s a practice that will continue to alienate a growing portion of their audience in fear of upsetting a shrinking number of readers.

Still, we live in a fairly conservative state, so one could hypothetically argue that Nebraska will have to move slower than the rest of the country. Yet according to GLAAD’s Announcing Equality website, the Columbus Telegram, Fremont Tribune, Hastings Tribune, Lincoln Journal Star, North Platte Telegraph, Scottsbluff Star-Herald and the Sidney Sun-Telegraph all accept same-sex marriage announcements.
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Was this really from last night?

Commentary on the public release of WWE steroid testimony is doing the rounds, including Marc Ambinder @ the Atlantic and Michael Scherer @ Swampland and Ambinder again.

But to get the full effect, and hours of entertainment, check out the full supply of testimony released last week from the House Oversight committee. You get interviews with Vince McMahon (122 pages of Vince, with a testy exchange at the end where Vince refuses to answer whether or not he’s ever taken performance enhancing drugs), Linda McMahon, Stephanie McMahon (source of the “Hulk Hogan was a terrible wrestler” quote), TNA President Dixie Carter, various doctors and more. It’s an interesting look into what the world of wrestling is and the world that promoters pretend it is.

Nate Silver has had two great posts today detailing the Senate recount in Minnesota. “Did the Wall Street Journal fire their fact checkers?” takes a look at the facts behind many of the Republican talking points circulating about this race, and “The good news for Coleman” outlines what the Coleman camp is banking their strategy on. Buried in that second post was this gem:

Defeated Presidential candidates sometimes have nine lives, but defeated Senatorial candidates rarely do, and in his career running for statewide office, Coleman has lost to a professional wrestler, beaten a dead guy, and then tied a comedian.