Gosh, she's good.

Our civilization's pursuit of parallel processes of innovation and preservation, in a handy postcard-sized image.

I'm growing increasingly concerned that this will become a perennially relevant ecard ...

Democrat Nora Bredes for Monroe County Legislature District 18

October 23, 2009

Nora Bredes, who moved to the Rochester area from downstate in 1999, continues to demonstrate she is fully invested in this community.

Bredes, a Democrat, is running for the Monroe County Legislature from District 18, which includes parts of Perinton and Pittsford. Her impressive credentials and vision for improving county government earned her the Democrat and Chronicle's endorsement.

She just received the endorsement of Rochester's largest newspaper, but it's still going to be a tough uphill battle ...

And yet what is on display in this seemingly nonsensical rise of 10 percent in the value of the Dow over the past few weeks? Nothing more than speculation that certain numbers look promising going forward. In other words, what we have here is a case of the “efficient markets hypothesis” working for the benefit of a Democratic politician, in that the collective wisdom of the market has it that the economy is going to grow at some point relatively soon and that the time to buy is now, so that stocks don’t get more expensive later.

This from John Podhoretz, explaining why it's grossly unfair that liberal economists get to bash conservative, "efficient market hypothesis"-believing economists and take credit for the rising Dow for their man, Obama. Two things:

1. What Podhoretz described isn't the efficient market hypothesis. The "Let's buy now before things get pricier because other people are going to buy now" is a rational response to an inefficient, irrational market -- i.e. one in which you expect crowds of people to stampede in and drive up share prices, even if the underlying assets haven't increased in value. In an efficient market hypothesis world, markets go up because we're getting more information about the underlying assets -- they're making lots of money, or their long-term money-making potential is improving. But we're not hearing uniformly good news. Citi's being dragged down by credit losses; consumers are still stretched thin; unemployment's still going up. All in all, signs are mixed at best. Which is why folks like Robert Reich (liberal economist extraordinaire) thinks this is an irrational market movement, not evidence of "efficient markets."

2. Podhoretz admits that Krugman, whose article about the battles in macroeconomics, won't be taking credit for the market gains. Neither is Robert Reich. So two leading liberal economists who criticize efficient markets aren't taking credit for the market gain. Who is Podhoretz talking about?

So, this isn't evidence of efficient markets, and liberal economists aren't taking credit for it. Why did Podhoretz bother writing all this?

Matt Layzell covers Avengers 217

Original cover by Bob Hall and Dan Green; Marvel 1982. Matt Layzell's website is here.

This might be the best covered cover I've seen on Covered so far. I love the conceit of Covered -- amateur or professional artists giving their takes on classic comic book covers. Often I think the covering artists don't go far enough in reinterpreting the classics, frequently opting for a more cartoon-y rendering. But this one really hits the mark.

Another Bad Employment Report (I-Wish-We-Had-a-Ripcord-to-Pull Department)

The adult civilian employment-to-population ratio drops below 59% to 58.8%, down from a December 2006 peak of 63.4% (and am April 2000 peak of 64.7%):

What's amazing about this chart is that the civilian employment-population ratio is now around where it was in the early 1980s while women were still establishing their current foothold in the labor market. There are more job-seekers now, with more families shooting to have two bread-winners, and yet the actual ratio of the population employed isn't any higher.

Someone should find George W. Bush and force him to continue to hold press conferences, just so we can continue to publicly ridicule him in the fashion he deserves.