McClatchy's Sacramento Bee:

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District sued Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and 45 other financial firms Thursday in Sacramento federal court for allegedly rigging bids in bond-derivatives markets and defrauding the utility.

SMUD joined at least six city and county governments in California that already have filed similar lawsuits arising from a federal investigation made public in 2006. Many other public entities around the country have joined in lawsuits seeking class-action status.

Not a dead Polish economist but a live Yale professor. I tend to resist totalizing theories, but the peroration caught my eye:

Via Baseline Scenario, where James Kwok comments that Brad DeLong is never afraid to admit error, this from DeLong:

“Back in the 1930s there was a Polish Marxist economist, Michel Kalecki, who argued that recessions were functional for the ruling class and for capitalism because they created excess supply of labor, forced workers to work harder to keep their jobs, and so produced a rise in the rate of relative surplus-value.

Times:

A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government’s picture of the country’s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation.

The shortcomings of the data-gathering system came through loud and clear here Friday and Saturday at a first-of-its-kind gathering of economists from academia and government determined to come up with a more accurate statistical picture.

Locals launch single-payer healthcare effort

The local group’s most visible event was a Sept. 24 public meeting held in the State College Borough Council Chambers that drew more than 100 people and is being rebroadcast on C-NET this month. The moderator of the event was Chris Calkins, director of Outreach Health Initiatives at Penn State and the panel included Ron Fisher, a practicing psychiatrist from Huntingdon, Chuck Pennacchio, the leader of the statewide Healthcare for All Pa., Sajay Samuel, a Penn State economist and Jon Eich chair of the Centre County Board of Commissioners who all took questions from the audience, which appeared overwhelmingly lopsided in support of reform.

Bloomberg

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Ashoka Mody, an assistant director of the International Monetary Fund’s European department, was in critical condition today after he was shot in the garage of his Bethesda, Maryland home last night, police said.

Mody, an economist originally from India, has worked at the IMF for eight years and is mission chief to Germany and Ireland, spokeswoman Jennifer Ann Beckman said in an interview.

I meant to post on this awhile back, but RL intervened, and so but I want to lay down a marker, because this is an important story to watch.

It seems Our Betters are in the process of deciding that more of us will never have jobs, like, ever again. Fortunately, few of us will lose our homes, because of HOLC... Well, fortunately, none of us will die sick and poor because we have single payer, so health care is a right... Oh, wait.*

[Just cross-posted to Kos. How about a recommendation? And welcome, Eschatonians, Paul Krugman, Digby, Andrew Tobias, and Sadly, No readers. And Avedon, you know I do.]

[And readers, if you want others to read this post, you can use the Digg or Reddit buttons below to recommend it.]

ONE CURRENT PERMATHREAD on Big Orange is that Krugman and Obama are feuding or having a vendetta. Which, when you take a step back, is bizarre. That movement conservatives and Villagers like stone Bush enabler William Kristol, like David Brooks, Broderella, and Andrew Sullivan are all good with Obama isn't even mentioned in passing by Obama's fan base. And yet those same enthusiasts spend inordinate amounts of time vilifying Paul Krugman, a true progressive who was there for us from the earliest dark days of the Bush regime.

Curious. What's really happening?  Read more…