Judge Jim Gray discusses with Reason Magazine, the six groups who benefit from drug prohibition. I’ll give you a hint, none of those groups are the average citizen:

Perhaps losing 36,000 jobs is better than expected, or even a sign of a recovery (which I doubt), but at best it’s a sign that things aren’t as bad as they were, not good news.

The Cato Institute released a short a video on how “creative accounting” is being used to underreport the cost of public education on the tax payer. While this is nothing new for the government, the scope of the dishonesty is impressive (if that’s the right word to use here):

The Federal Reserve and Treasury have pumped an ungodly amount of money back into the economy, which raises serious concerns about future inflation, but for now, much of that money is stuck in the banks and velocity is extremely low.

So what have some city governments and businesses done to combat this? Well, they’ve decided to print their own money. MSN Money highlights one such example:

There’s a lot of talk out there about green shoots, economic recovery and stabilization. Most people aren’t predicting giant leaps in GDP anytime soon, but some are predicting modest global GDP growth between 2-4 percent for 2010. As Greece goes bankrupt and looks to its EU compatriots for help, remember they’re not the only nation on the belly up path. And from a United States perspective, here are the numbers you should be hearing on a daily basis, but aren’t. It isn’t just a matter of restoring economic growth and reducing unemployment. Surprise, surprise: debt, unfulfillable promises and easy money have consequences. Unfortunately, we have plenty of all three:

We haven’t seen inflation on the whole during the financial rescue efforts, despite the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies. If you wanted to cherry pick certain assets, the argument could be made that $140/barrel oil, during a recession, coinciding with a dump of liquidity on the economy, could be related. Global oil transactions are denominated in US dollars. It is hard to imagine any other factor being solely responsible for such a historic, and counterintuitive, rise in petroleum during a recession.

If you didn’t think there was a wink and a nod relationship between large banks and the feds, the “Volcker Rule” should serve as an acknowledgment. Because lending and credit is so crucial to the economy, financial institutions know the government will backstop them during crisis mode in the industry.

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute took a little trip back in time to check the government’s budget accuracy… they get an F minus. As Walter Williams points out here, this is nothing new, but in 2001, the Bush Administration forecasted that by 2010, the Federal government would have a $2.71 trillion dollar budget. According to Obama’s budget estimate, it will be $3.83 trillion dollars! The following chart shows the real budget vs. the forecast.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner discusses the burdens of his position, why he felt it was necessary to bailout the financial system and the paternal role taken by the federal government:

Ron Paul and Paul Kanjorski have a good debate on Ben Bernanke’s reappointment hearings, H.R. 1207 (auditing the Fed) and the Federal Reserve in general. It is a very good debate and definitely worth watching: