What do a major network news website's headlines tell you about a country or an economy?

Regulators: Bailout is working--Paulson and Bernanke say the $700b is working despite its critics. Future headline--"Shaughnessy: short economists more intelligent than most."

So if the bailout is working, why do we see the Ford CEO on bailout opposition: Past is past. He says "the automobile industry is just absolutely essential to the United States' economy." Elsewhere, we find out that "The automakers are asking for about $25 billion in loans to help them survive until 2010." An absolutely essential industry needs $2b a month? There are "more than 1.6 million jobs tied to the auto industry." So each affected person requires $15,625 in tax subsidy? This second story only discusses the harm from an auto industry failure; it says nothing about the current harm from misallocating scarce resources to prop up an inefficient industry.

What's really killing Detroit? I'll agree with SUV addiction, lack of small cars, lousy quality (including the struts on my '04 Pontiac Grand Prix), lack of hybrids, and union workers. But of course they also have to throw in the class-envy bone of fat executive paychecks.

From the "government can do everything" file: Bush hopes to ease holiday travel congestion.

And from the "well, maybe not" file: Blind woman threatened with suit over 1-cent. The overdue payment is for her city water bill. The city official criticizes the blind woman for not paying the extra penny in her original bill.

Don't get sick (again): Half of primary-care doctors in survey would leave medicine if they had an alternative. "Many said they are overwhelmed with their practices, not because they have too many patients, but because there's too much red tape generated from insurance companies and government agencies ... With lower reimbursement from insurance companies and the cost of malpractice insurance skyrocketing, these health professionals say it's not worth running a practice and are changing careers. Others say they're going into so-called boutique medicine, in which they charge patients a yearly fee up front and don't take insurance." And if you're looking for an example of the problems of not using price as a rationing mechanism: "People who have insurance can't find a doctor, so suddenly we are going to give insurance to a whole bunch of people who haven't had it, without increasing the number of physicians?... It's going to be a problem."

Lastly, As children starve, world struggles for solution, with a focus on Haiti. Haiti's EFW score is 6.2, but they have an abysmal 2.59 in the "legal system and property rights" category. Why would the world struggle for a 200-year old solution?