Free Republic

As a metaphor for our troubled economic and financial era -- and the government's stumbling response -- this one's hard to beat. You can't stimulate the economy via the money supply, after all, if you can't print the money correctly. Because of a problem with the presses, the federal government has shut down production of its flashy new $100 bills, and has quarantined more than 1 billion of them -- more than 10 percent of all existing U.S. cash -- in a vault in Fort Worth, Texas, reports CNBC

Last April, Tim Geithner held a secret, never-before-disclosed meeting with TV host Jon Stewart, according to Bloomberg, citing the Treasury Secretary's calendar. The reason, according to a Treasury spokesperson: “Jon Stewart is influential in America, so we took the opportunity for the two to meet and to discuss the economy.” This basically ends any debate about whether Stewart is a comedian or a newsman. Presumably Geithner thought it important that Stewart be well-informed on aspects of policy, and Stewart felt the same way.

OTTAWA (Dow Jones)--Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Thursday G20 countries have to coordinate planning stimulus exit strategies."That's important so that one country's banking system isn't advantaged over another country's banking system as we exit from this period of stimulus, which isn't going to happen for a while," Flaherty told reporters. He expects G20 finance ministers and central bank governors to discuss exit strategies at their weekend meeting in St. Andrews, U.K. He cautioned, "Not that it's time to implement exit strategies but that we coordinate our planning in terms of exit strategies." Regarding moral hazard when some banks are...