Brad DeLong has stumped even the almighty Wonk Watch. DeLong's main post today is filled with logarithmic equations that are indecipherable for calculus dropouts like ourselves. If any of you can make sense of it, e-mail one of us, or leave a comment at the end of this post.

Paul Krugman posted two series of lecture slides packed with pretty charts and graphs, titled "The sum of all fears" and the "The eschatology of lost decades" [sic]. We'll let you decipher these sunny numerical narratives, if you please. He also backed Council on Foreign Relations econoblogger Brad Sester's conclusion on the grimness of South Korea's trade data, calling the country a "leading indicator." Last but not least, Krugman pondered why British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's effective economic policies haven't weighed in his favor as he negotiates a political fiasco.

Barry Ritholtz continued to back up his no-we're-not-out-of-the-recession-yet thesis by reminding us that the American consumer is still as debt-ridden as she once was. He even provides charts to prove his point. Upon hearing the news that banks are paying back their TARP funds months after they first took them, Ritholtz wonders why they needed it in the first place. Then he goes all conspiracy theory and suggests it's because Paulson needed to bail Citi (C) out but couldn't favor Citi alone. And $700 billion later, Paulson found his solution.

Felix Salmon kicked off the day's blogging with an homage to a UPenn professor who's been stimulating economies in poor countries by helping locals develop tourism revenue around archaeological sites. Then he argued in favor of the Treasury's decision to allow healthy banks to repay their bailout loans because, well, it needs the money. Other posts for the day included musings on the over-leveraged evils of municipal bond insurance, relative to just buying the bonds, and an excerpt from an Office of the Inspector General report, which describes an on-the-clock SEC employee who failed to access porn Web sites from his work computer 1880 times in 17 days.