Return of the Lockbox, a column by Mark Weisbrot at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. 

I am not an economist; to me, economics seems a study in conundrums.  But all this 'either raid the trust fund, or pay down the debt' rhetoric is not informative or even helpful.  It is, rather, the two major political parties jockeying for advantage. 

I am usually a politician-basher but, you know, they must be as fed-up with us as we are of them.  As an electorate, we are lethargic, disinterested, and a nearly unrousable occupant of our own careening destiny.  The tedious decisions, the tough decisions, the consequential decisions; we choose to discard them to the custody of our elected representatives who, without guidance from their constituents, have no choice but to find other lights to guide them.  This is the inevitible result of popular non-participation in government, and we should not expect it to be different.  Unless we participate. 

We cannot expect them to do what we want unless we tell them what we think.  And, yes, that makes the letters and the calls and the e-mails and blah, blah, blah all very important.  But the tedious work of telling them what we think is not the hardest part; thinking is. 

Thinking leads to feeling, and feeling leads to a meaningful response.  If we have conviction, then the e-mailing, the letter writing, the phone calling - even the sign making - is a cinch, and not tedious at all. 

Personally grappling with the intractable conflicts that confront our lawmakers is the very chore which we elected them to relieve us of.  That is a self-deception.  We are responsible; all they do is represent us.  And to overcome our disinterest, the politicians present us exaggerated details with histrionic drama, and that is OK with us - even when we know that what they are doing is not strictly truthful.  That's OK, as long as they just keep making our decisions for us, relieving us of our responsibilities which, really, are impossible for us to surrender - whether we like it or not. 

Found in the Boston Globe this morning, with coffee: US to tap pension funds, report says.

Shifting Social Security funds to other government expenses has no impact on benefit payments, but has been considered taboo since 1998, the last time the government used part of the surplus for anything other than paying down debt. Office of Management and Budget director Mitch Daniels yesterday called that policy a ''symbolic commitment,'' arguing that while it was a noble cause, it should be considered a luxury in boom times, not a necessity during an economic downturn, and that the budget estimates should not hamper investments in defense.

Please tell me what we need defense from, if not from these worry-mongering Queeg's who live in fear and seek to codify it. 

Sorry.  Pomposity is not a good way for me to start the day. 

Me and Irene are looking at another apartment this morning and, in the cyclical nature of things, it is across the street from the apartment which I moved out of 6 years ago to come to my current place.&nbs.  It is on the third floor of a gorgeous old brick Victorian that is showing its age.  All hinges on the quality of the renovations now ongoing.