Paul Krugman started his day pointing out a disturbing trend: economists and commentators who "have been reinventing old fallacies"—economic ideas that were actually thought up decades ago and have already been proven false. In this case, the words in question are "liquidationism" (a Hoover-esque, laissez-faire approach to economic crises) and "Treasury view" (the idea that unemployment figures don't rely on fiscal policy). The old-fallacies phenomenon would be worth a good chuckle if it weren't so depressing.

He later tackled the meaning behind the recent bump in long-term interest rates. Krugman argued that commodity prices are a strong indicator of what the figures could mean. I'll let the man explain for himself:

If we're seeing rising rates because government borrowing is crowding out private borrowing, commodity prices should go down: holding inventories becomes more expensive. If we're seeing increased optimism, commodity prices should go up, anticipating a stronger future.

In fact, commodity prices have gone up.

Brad DeLong jumped on May's declining GDP numbers, proclaiming "I See No Green Shoots Here ..." (no arguments here, Brad).

DeLong, of course, is far from alone in his disdain for green-shoots sentiments. Barry Ritholtz denounced herbaceous enthusiasm by citing two pieces from the New York Times, both of which, he argued, touch on "some of our favorite themes: Indebtedness of Consumers, the poor condition of bailed out banks, and the ongoing softness in the labor market." And while he was at it, he also took the time to remind us that he's a libertarian (no kidding, Barry, really?) and that he has a book out.

Felix Salmon introduced us to the "reverse-convert scam" which, if it's everything he promises us it is, sounds like just heaps of fun: "lend money unsecured to a highly-leveraged financial institution while at the same time writing an out-of-the-money put option on an extremely volatile individual stock."

Salmon also proffered an ambiguously titled entry, "Ideas for fixing the economy," to announce his participation in the Atlantic's "ideas issue."