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Paul Krugman attacks the "deficit squeamishness" of the Obama administration again. The issue, as he understands it, is that government officials "don’t trust the demand for long-term government debt, because they see it as driven by a 'carry trade,' " which, as TBM explained this week, is when players borrow cheaply in the short-term and use that money to buy long-term bonds.

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Paul Krugman continues his lobby for low interest rates.

Brad DeLong tackles the future of the US budget and deficit, but doesn't place much faith in Congress for being able to manage it. He quotes Doug Elmendorf--Director of the Congressional Budget Office--and Matthew Yglesias as they discuss the nation's economic future and the politics that they believe gets in the way. All three focus on medium-term future, between 2012 and 2020.

Barry Ritholtz picks up on a keen insight from Floyd Norris, who points out how last week’s unemployment figures were misleading. The official report said that unemployment had risen to 10.2 percent. Norris reports that due to seasonal adjustment, the figures were skewed and that the actual unemployment rate sits at 9.5 percent. Norris also found that the number of jobs grew by 80,000.

Felix Salmon gives it up to William Black—a blogger at MichaelMoore.com—for making “mincemeat of the idea that the government can and should keep a top-secret list of systemically-dangerous institutions which are subject to ‘heightened prudential standards.’ ” The Fed and the Treasury have proposed legislation to respond to systematically dangerous institutions (SDIs) by creating a list of SDIs that “can receive special federal bailouts when they get in trouble,”

• Matthew McKnight is an intern at The Big Money.