Around the moronosphere 1/7/10

Hot Air - GOP aides warn RNC: It’s time for Steele to shut up

God knows I agree. The guy is a walking embarrasment, but that isn't the only problem the GOP has:

GOP Insiders Sour On Palin:

A poll of GOP insiders suggests that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has little support among the party's professional class

I assume by professional class they mean the likes of Michael Steele ans Steve Schmidt - who is still out there peddling stories about how Sarah Palin is so stupid she couldn't remember Joe Biden's name.

Instapundit - AT AMAZON, taking trade-ins on used textbooks, and discounting new ones. This could put a world of hurt on college bookstores, which have traditionally enjoyed a semi-monopoly.

Professor Reynolds often prefaces his posts with "Faster Please". Well having just been raped by the textbook fairy again this development came not a moment too soon. I am seriously considering printing this page and posting it all over campus. Screw the campus bookstore.

Little Green Footballs records it's 8,000,000th comment. Charles Johnson reneges on promise to release sycophants families. Tells then to keep typing until fingers bleed and bone is exposed.

In Praise of a Weaker Dollar:

It's taken for granted that America enjoys a huge advantage from the fact that the dollar is the world's global reserve currency, representing more than 60 percent of the money held in central banks. The euro, a distant second, represents only 26 percent of reserves. But a new and contrarian report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) calls that old wisdom into question.

...

The Evidence: According to MGI, in 2007 and 2008 the net benefit to the U.S. of the dollar as a reserve currency was a mere $40 billion to $70 billion a year--just 0.3 to 0.5 percent of GDP. What's more, in the worst-case scenario run by McKinsey, the dollar effect actually became negative in 2009, costing America about $5 billion a year. -McKinsey believes up to 1 million U.S. jobs have been lost due to an overvalued currency, a trend that's been exacerbated this year as jittery investors fled to the dollar as a safe haven. Indeed, the report suggests that export-oriented U.S. firms might gain ground on European competitors and be in a position to help offset high unemployment if the dollar was allowed to depreciate by about 10 percent. Exchange rates can make or break companies; McKinsey notes that the profits of Korean powerhouse Samsung are twice that of the top nine Japanese competitors combined, in part because the -Korean currency is so much cheaper than the Japanese.