[JECON.2]China became the World’s 2nd largest economy this weekend.

Or rather, Japan became number three because it’s not so much what China did as what Japan did not do, which was (or was not, in this case) grow.  Japan’s GDP came in at a pathetic 0.4% annualized pace in Q2, about 1/6 of the 2.3% pace expected and 90% slower than the 4.4% pace of Q1.  At least we can’t call Japan a “double dip” – they haven’t been out of a recession since the ’80’s…

This post will be mercifully short as I’m in Washington, DC this morning, hoping to avoid having China pass us by next by pushing my “New, New Deal” (and don’t even bother reading this if you are a Conservative as it will just upset you or, even worse, make you think) and generally making a nuisance of myself as I try to get a handle on what is real in this town (quite a trick, actually). 

One surreal thing I noticed is that the Washington Post does not have a full Business Section.  That’s right – our capitol’s largest newspaper and one of the oldest in the nation, has NO  full business section – today it’s just 2 pages on A9 and A10 (at least it’s in Section A!).   It is the fith largest paper in the nation but, more importantly than that, it is read by 582,000 people a day, which is about 1/2 of all of the people in this town DOES NOT HAVE A PROPER BUSINESS SECTION.  They do have a Style section and Classifieds and Sports but, on Monday at least, no Business Section.  Don’t you think that may somehow color the way Washingtonians view the World, when their own paper de-emphasized Business to the point where I would comparatively call the USA Today in-depth?

What makes this even stranger is that the paper’s editor, Marcus Brauchli, was previously the editor of the Wall Street Journal!  I knew the post has gone conservative over the years but I never realized why conservatives in DC seem so clueless as to how the real economy works.  Now I see that it is truly a case of “hear no evil, see no evil” when reading the Post – a paper that once won Pulitzers for uncovering Watergate and now allows their reporting to be dictated by Republicans.  In “Buying the War“ on PBS, Bill Moyers noted 27 editorials supporting Bush’s ambitions to invade Iraq. National…
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