Smoking gun or no smoking gun, the line going around in Ireland about David Blunkett’s resignation is; ‘Jesus, a Minister who didn’t sort out a visa application for someone he knew should have to resign.’

Plus, is anyone else irritated that the same Jacques Chirac who lazed by the pool while thousands of elderly Parisians baked to death last year ditched his Moroccan holiday for a photo opp with the released hostages Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot?

My article The Unsustainability of U.S. Trade Deficits has just been published in The Economists’ Voice along with a piece on government deficits by Ronald McKinnon. Although relatively new and oriented to a general audience, EV looks like being a high-powered journal, having already published Stiglitz, Posner and Akerlof among others, so I’m pretty pleased to have made it into volume 1. Thanks to everyone here and on my blog who helped me to sharpen my arguments on this topic.

Update One point in my piece that I thought was at least modestly novel was my observation that the US government has been shortening the term of the Treasury securities (bonds, notes and bills) it issues. Now, via Brad DeLong, I see that Nouriel Roubini has just covered the same issue in a lot more detail, offering what he describes as “A Nightmare Hard Landing Scenario for the US $ and the US Bond Market..”. And you all thought I was bearish.