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Last Friday I posted a clip from a video in which Warren Buffet explains the nature of economic relationship between China and the United States. Well... move over, Warren, because the folks at Saturday Night Live have done a much better (and funnier) job.

Dan Drezner analyzes.

Your Wednesday readables are as follows:

- Awesome: The newsmap

- Nutty: The Higgs boson is traveling back in time to sabotage the Large Hadron Collider. I sincerely hope that this does not impact adversely on the sales of the Junior Wizard Supercollider.

- Rant: Careers in investment banking are still popular for recent grads "for the simple reason that... these jobs are f**king awesome."

- Funny: "You must understand what bankers do: we don't make furniture; we don't write novels; we make money."

The British House of Commons released over one million heavily redacted pages this morning outlining MPs expenses claims. A highlight:

Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Culture Secretary, submitted a phone bill for 1p in October 2005.

You read that correctly: 1p.

Jokes about economics & economists

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has again publicly defended Pakistan's sovereignty and called on the US to provide his country with the means the strike militants itself. Via FP Passport,

"I cannot condone violations of our sovereignty even when they are done by allies and friends. We would much prefer that the US share its intelligence and give us the drones and missiles that will allow us to take care of this problem on our own."

Give you drones and missiles. Um, no.

The Financial Times, also known as the pink lady, is one of the premier English language newspapers. But I am sad to report that the FT's sterling reputation was sullied last week. Not, mind you, by shoddy reporting, poor editing, or some journalistic scandal; rather, its name has been tarnished by the arrival of an impostor!

In a hilariously Onion-esque move, a collection of savvy G20 protesters were handing out fake copies of the Financial Times at Waterloo Station in London. The website for the fake newspaper, FT2020, looks pretty well identical to its mainstream target. There's a lot of content, some of it very sharp, so check it out.

Maybe I'm losing my memory, but somehow I don't remember these parts of the speech...

First off, read Rory's piece on Fed policy then check out the new Federal Reserve No-Limit Credit Card. We laugh because it's good satire, but how is this really different from what American consumers have been doing for a decade?

Except of course that the interest will be paid, not by the Fed, but by anyone and everyone who holds dollar-denominated assets.

I've escaped from the children's Christmas party in my office to report on an important statistical indicator:

This year, the traditional Christmas CPI runs about $21,080.10. Or so says PNC Wealth Management, which measures the change in cost of living by indexing the gifts from the seasonal song "The Twelve Days of Christmas." It appears as though, despite bearish commodity markets, trumpeter swans a-swimming and turtledoves would have been excellent investments. The NYT has the rest here.

Happy Christmas!

The recent kerfuffle in Canadian politics managed to draw the attention of international spectators just long enough for some awkward questions to be raised about the nature of democracy in some of the United Kingdom's former colonies. Who exactly is the head of state in these places? What is their role? What does it mean to "prorogue" parliament? Is Stephen Harper's hair made of plastic?

Question no further, readers. All is explained through these links:

The Daily Show tackles the tough questions here (or here for Canadian readers).

I also enjoyed Dr. Boli's answer.

I have found a solution to the boring old government spending vs. tax cuts stimulus debate: it's QuikCash! Just in time for the holidays.

Part one.

-The FT bids adieu to the commodity super-cycle.

In August we pointed out that summertime worries over inflation were probably overstated. Since then, a collapse in commodity markets and consumer spending has vindicated this view - so much so that the new worry is deflation. Deflation is by most accounts worse than inflation because of the difficulty in reversing the trend. First, a backgrounder:

Deflation is "A general decline in prices, often caused by a reduction in the supply of money or credit.... Declining prices, if they persist, generally create a vicious spiral of negatives such as falling profits, closing factories, shrinking employment and incomes, and increasing defaults on loans by companies and individuals. To counter deflation, [central banks] can use monetary policy to increase the money supply and deliberately induce rising prices, causing inflation."

The trouble is, central banks have been attempting to increase the money supply by lowering interest rates with less-than-stellar success. Besides, there are inherent limits to monetary policy - limits which seem to be approaching quickly.

So what to do? John Kemp argues forcefully that the best way to deal with deflation is to stop trying to fix it. Que? Based on his reading of previous depressions, deflation is the symptom of a severe decline in the business cycle, not the cause. The full article is very interesting (so is this one), but the conclusion reads as follows:

Rather than worrying about a modest decline in the price level, policy needs to focus on guaranteeing households and businesses against the worst aspects of the downturn to minimize the decline in spending and investment. Policies that create demand and jobs, while limiting foreclosures and bankruptcies, rather than fight the deflation chimera or worry about falling asset values are now the urgent priority.

Watch you don't get burned...