lifestyle leader

- Oh how I wish I wish this had happened while I was living in London: the heaviest snowfall in almost two decades has hit the UK capital. I've always wondered how the City workers would react to snowfall and now we've found out: they take a "snow day" - to the cost of about 1 billion pounds. (Here's a slideshow, and more funny)

- Anti-protectionist writing continues to pour out of the economic blogosphere. You can find a writer at Free Exchange dismantling the populist argument here; the Davos crowd is understandably nervous, and Willem Buiter is his usual, uncompromising self. A sample:

If anything like the Buy American clause inserted by the House survives in the bill president Obama gets on his desk, he must veto it. The questionable value of the fiscal stimulus is overwhelmed by the unquestionable domestic and global harm caused by the Buy American clause. If president Obama fails to veto a protectionism-laced bill, it will be clear that we have a wuss in the White House.

- China's manufacturing sector contracted for the sixth consecutive month in January. But in fact the trend is much wider than that, and much worse. Cue the trade war.