Tim Geithner is the master of doublethink:

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner vowed Tuesday that the United States would never follow a strategy to weaken the US dollar.

“Our policy has been and will always be, as long as I will be in office, that a strong dollar is in the interest of the country,” Geithner said at a New York conference organized by the Council of Foreign Relations.

“We will never embrace a strategy to weaken the dollar.”

It was the first time this year that Geithner had publicly proclaimed a US strong-dollar policy, a mantra of treasury secretaries for more than a decade.

In the year to date, the dollar has lost 6.5 percent of its value compared with a basket of currencies held by its major trade partners.

This is just depressing:

The share of the population that is working fell to its lowest level last year since women started entering the workforce in large numbers three decades ago, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

An aging population contributes to a challenge for the nation’s social programs.

Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010, the lowest rate since 1983 and down from a peak of 49.3% in 2000. Last year, just 66.8% of men had jobs, the lowest on record.

The bad economy, an aging population and a plateau in women working are contributing to changes that pose serious challenges for financing the nation’s social programs.

“What’s wrong with the economy may be speeding up trends that are already happening,” says Marc Goldwein, policy director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan group favoring smaller deficits.

For example, job troubles appear to have slowed a trend of people working later in life, putting more pressure on Social Security, he says.

Another change: the bulk of those not working has shifted from children to adults.

In 2000, the nation had roughly the same number of children and non-working adults. Since then, the population of non-working adults has grown 27 million while the nation added just 3 million children under 18.

…is that you can spout nonsense for years and get published in places like Vanity Fair. Good thing there are bloggers who will call BS on people like Joseph Stiglitz and the silly things he says about equality. 

Who knew:

Of all of the classes offered in high school, Algebra II is the leading predictor of college and work success, according to research that has launched a growing national movement to require it of graduates.

I think I did pretty well in Algebra II, but I sucked at Trig if I remember correctly. 

This is just amazing. Freakonomics reports:

Census data released this week confirmed what we already knew: Detroit is dying. It’s just happening much faster than we thought. From 2000 to 2010, Detroit lost a quarter of its population; 273,500 people. According to news reports, local officials are stunned, including Mayor Dave Bing, who wants a recount.

After New Orleans, which lost 29 percent of its population in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Detroit’s 25 percent loss is the largest percentage drop in the history of an American city with more than 100,000 people. Just ten years ago, Detroit was the tenth largest city in the country. Demographers at the Brookings Institute now believe it might have fallen all the way to 18th, with just 713,777 people. That’s the smallest it’s been since 1910, just before the automotive boom brought millions of well-paid jobs and turned Detroit into the Motor City. It’s hard to imagine, but up until 1950, Detroit was the fourth biggest city in America. In 1960, it had the highest per-capita income in the U.S.