Johnny Venom, Bonddad and New Deal Democrat are on the radio today, on the Johnny Wendell show, 4:30pm, PST. You can listen live here and here is the web page for Johnny Wendell on KTLK.

Sometimes comments can be better than the blog posts and with that in mind, we start a new series:

Best Comments

From Iams712 is the sentiment I am seeing across the blogs, often from people who worked hard on political campaigns:

I agree with you for the most part....

Research and Development is moving out of the United States and offshore. In a new Economic Policy Institute study titled The Offshoring of Innovation, Dr. Ron Hira made the acceleration clear.

The economic and national security outcomes of increased resource input into the innovation process are going to be different than they have been in the past. We need fresh thinking about policies that will re-shape the new national innovation system to achieve desired outcomes

Obama hasn't been sworn into office yet and he's basically laid an egg on his economic stimulus plan. That said, opinions are like censored and let's look at some analysis.

Firstly we have Christina Romer & Jared Bernstein analysis.

Frankly, I find this this report odious simply going off of the principle that a 1% increase in GDP equates to 1 million jobs. Well, that's all great if the U.S. were an isolated economy, but it's not and today's GDP does not equate directly to U.S. domestic job growth, as a 1:1 correlation. Rebate checks end up buying goods from other nations. Tax cuts not dealing with global labor arbitrage and offshore outsourcing won't create jobs.

Anyone in denial about the United States and the economy should now get over it.

The unemployment numbers for December came in and it ain't pretty.

The unemployment rate is now 7.2%. This is the largest unemployment jump since 1945, The massive job hemorrhage shows the economy is in free fall.

Also the Congressional Budget Office released it's Budget 2009 Outlook report and it ain't pretty either.

• CBO projects that the deficit this year will total $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP
• CBO expects federal revenues to decline by $166 billion, or 6.6 percent, from the amount in 2008
• An unemployment rate that will exceed 9 percent early in 2010
• CBO anticipates that the current recession, which started in December 2007, will last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II

It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!