Sarah Palin Says She Can Win the Presidency, Michelle Bachmann Was a Tax Collector, Small Businesses are Not Hiring Though No One Knows Why .

.And More News That Begs for Commentary

Given all of the critical news this past week, Deficit and Debt Ceiling Crisis, Terrible Employment Numbers, Political Crisis in Britain, Government Shutdown in Minnesota it is only correct that Newsweek, the once reputable and reliable news weekly would feature Sarah Palin.  In the USA Today report on the lead story Ms. Palin declares

"I believe that I can win a national election

And her husband says it is

up to her. I mean, we'll discuss it. But she's definitely qualified to run this country. And she's a got a fire in the belly to serve."

This tells The Dismal Political Economist three things, (1) Ms. Palin has confused a fire in her belly to run for President with ordinary heartburn, (2) A husband’s loyalty can cloud his judgment and (3) Newsweek is well along in its goal to destroy the American news weekly as a media institution.

It turns out the Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s, (R, Mn) legal work, as described by a WSJ headline was  "Tax Attorney Job Was Collector for the IRS".  Their words.  Her words,   "On the campaign trail, she describes it as being a "federal tax litigation attorney."

For those of you wondering why an anti-tax Conservative would go into such a job, it turns out that

 

Ms. Bachmann has said she had no particular interest in tax law but moved into the field at the direction of her husband, Marcus.

"'Tax law? I hate taxes. Why should I go do something like that?' " Ms. Bachmann said in 2006 remarks at the Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park, Minn., recounting a conversation she had with her husband. "But, by faith, I was going to be faithful to what God was calling me to do through my husband, and I finished that course of study

Of course, since Conservatives argue that government has never, ever created a single job, it is not clear what Ms. Bachmann was really doing while she was collecting a government paycheck, but obviously it could not have been working for the government.

The U. S. Chamber of Commerce surveyed small business and found to the surprise of absolutely no one that small business was not planning on doing any major hiring. 

As to the why, Republicans blamed government spending, Democrats blamed tax cuts for the wealthy and one or two rational economists explained that the simple answer was that there was no demand for the additional goods and services that would be produced by hiring more employees.  The economists are not named for fear they would be abused by politicians on all sides who would say that those economists were being too simplistic, that the answer could not be that easy, could it?