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A Quick Look at Bloomberg News's Opinion Section for March 1, 2012

Let's go in like a lion, shall we? All the talk of rising gas prices
certainly has View columnist Caroline Baum roaring: "There is nothing, and I
mean nothing, like rising crude-oil prices to make sensible people go all
wobbly in the head. Economists fail to differentiate between cause and
effect. They confuse a supply shock with a shift in demand and see the
outcomes as interchangeable. And they can’t see beyond the immediate
negative impact on the consumer. When rising oil prices coincide with an
election year, people start spouting utter nonsense. It never changes." She
shares the nonsense at the[2] link.
Links:
2. http://bloom.bg/yD0XdD

Columnist Ezra Klein is also agitated by muddled thinking, courtesy of a
study of American attitudes toward federal largesse: "60 percent of those
who benefit from the home-mortgage interest deduction didn’t think they had
ever used a government social program. Fifty-three percent of those with
student loans didn’t think they had used one. Among Social Security
beneficiaries, 44 percent thought themselves unsullied by the touch of
government, and among Medicare beneficiaries, 39 percent said the same.
Twenty-seven percent of those in public housing answered in the negative, as
did 25 percent of those on food stamps." [3]Link.
Links:
3. http://bloom.bg/Af7GkW

As for those who truly have something to complain about, op-ed contributor
Paul Blustein has an update from Japan, a year after the tsunami. "Our
family has feasted on two Gambaru Pakku (“Hang in there!” packs) -- boxes of
fruit, vegetables and miso from Fukushima Prefecture -- and my wife has just
ordered a third," writes Blustein, a former Washington Post correspondent.
"We have bought several cartons of crisp Fukushima apples, too, and almost
all of the rice we have consumed since the earthquake last March has also
come from the part of Japan known worldwide for its crippled nuclear
reactors. Since we are convinced it’s safe, shifting our consumption to
Fukushima food is our small way of helping people from a devastated area,
whose products suffer from an unjust taint. Lately, though, this sort of
gesture is starting to feel futile. After an initial groundswell of sympathy
and support for the stricken northeast coast, a vocal segment of the public
obsessed with avoiding even insignificant levels of radioactivity seems to
be turning its back on the region." [4]Link.
Links:
4. http://bloom.bg/yQvT19

And is Ben Bernanke tarnishing the reputation of his guru, Milton Friedman?
"Perhaps the Fed chairman is abusing his old connection to the monetary
master, Friedman, as a cover for a policy that Friedman might not endorse,"
writes columnist Amity Shlaes. "That policy is doing anything Bernanke feels
like -- dumping money in the economy, or simply scaremongering -- with the
defense that doing so is honoring Friedman’s desire to avoid that deflation,
that recession or that Depression. It is time to call Bernanke’s Friedman
bluff." [5]Link.
Links:
5. http://bloom.bg/zimab4

Also, the editors explain how mortgage forgiveness can save taxpayers
money; Business Class contributors Atif Mian and Amir Sufi have their own
suggestions for losing the housing blues; and Susan Antilla looks at Occupy
the SEC.

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