Brad DeLong excerpted mostly today. Starting with a report from Ali Frick at ThinkProgress, DeLong came out fighting, accusing conservatives of "waste, fraud, and abuse." The issue at hand is Republican rancor over production cuts of F-22s (a $2 billion fighter jet), the result of the Obama administration's defense budget trimmings. DeLong argued that reducing F-22 production is key—the plane has been useless in recent military engagements and is representative of bloated defense spending on antiquated equipment. But Republicans remain concerned over how this spending shift may affect jobs.

Next excerpt came from Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf on managing bank employee incentives. Or, as DeLong puts it, "compensation schemes that make it a complete personal catastrophe for the CEO and all other employees if their bank fails." The gist? You can't have financial regulation without regulating incentives.

Paul Krugman tipped his hat to Rep. Barney Frank for pointing out that military spending costs money, too. (Sounds crazy, right?) Congressman Frank taunted his deficit-slamming GOP counterparts to hypocrisy, pre-empting arguments to save overpriced, underutilized F-22 jets by way of "weaponized Keynesianism." Krugman also berated Obama's recent comments on health care reform, claiming the president is developing a nasty habit of hedging on key issues, when he should be standing firmly behind a public option plan.

And here we thought DeLong had some fighting words. Barry Ritholtz continued to straight up accuse the National Association of Mortgage Bankers and The National Association of Realtors of encouraging widespread corruption in home value appraisals. Furthering a fight that he's been waging this week, he cites a statement from an NAR economist asking for lenders to use "familiar" appraisers—i.e., people who know the neighborhood of the home they're appraising—more often. Italicized anger ensued.

And, as Ritholtz said, "once again down the rabbit hole," Barry's readers were treated to a fun chart reiterating just how crummy new homes sales are. (He also revealed where he's getting some of the awesome charts he snags each day.) Rounding that out is Barry's own word of the day, queasing, and his observation that the Federal Open Market Committee's June statement on the economy is almost identical to the one it released in April.

In a rare deviation from his Citigroup-bashing bonanza, Felix Salmon defended the bank's decision to raise base salaries, which Clusterstock's John Carney called into question. It doesn't matter that Citigroup (C) wouldn't exist without taxpayer dollars, Salmon argues; raising base pay while reducing bonuses is one way Citi can reduce its bloated bonus to salary ratio. Salmon feels so strongly, in fact, that he goes so far as to call Citi a leader on the issue. Bravo, Citi, you've won the Salmon stamp of approval!