Brad DeLong seconded Paul Krugman in a wonkish duel against deficit-wielding fear mongers, supporting his fellow economist's argument that long-term interest rates rise, rather than fall, with optimism. He also stood beside Krugman against Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson's take on a green economy, (gleefully) gleaning an opportunity to debase the newspaper and repeat his favorite mantra: "Why, oh why, can't we have a better press corps?"

Today, Paul Krugman has good news for climate advocates: It's economically feasible to save the environment. (OK, so it's not really news.) He does point to new data from the Congressional Budget Office to show that cap-and-trade carbon regulation would be relatively inexpensive for the American taxpayer. It comes out to roughly 18 cents per day, per person. Also, he says many major health care providers monopolize state markets; rendering mute the pro-market-competition rhetoric of public-option opponents, a group that includes Democrats.

Barry Ritholtz puts the kibosh on unduly optimistic arguments that a decrease in continuing jobless claims (persons filing for repeat consecutive benefits, as opposed to filing for the first time) means the economy is recovering. People didn't drop off the unemployment rolls because they found jobs, says Ritholtz. They just can't collect any more cash under the plan. He points to a chart courtesy of his Bloomberg terminal (read: a fancy data aggregator) that proves it. Things are not looking up.

Felix Salmon is thankful that bankers' salaries are going up ... because it means their total pay may be more controlled. He reasons that if base pay makes up a larger portion of bankers' salaries then arbitrarily doled-out bonuses will be less important.

With a base salary of $400,000, bankers might start feeling that they're actually getting paid to turn up to work every morning, and also that they're being paid enough to be able to be asked to give up their bonuses should things fall apart again and their institution require a massive bailout.

This, of course, fails to recognize that base salaries are unlikely to go down. So whenever bonuses creep back to their previous levels, the bankers' annual income may be higher than before the crash.