Paul Krugman today once again bemoans the lack of Keynesianism in what passes for economic policymaking discussions these days, and I share that complaint.

However, Krugman may be missing part of the problem here, which is that those who pooh-pooh the prospect of deflation may actually not much care if it materializes, though they would be mistaken to do so.

Rising labor strife in China has potentially significant implications for US companies and financial markets. The irony is that what companies want isn't necessarily the same thing that markets do.

Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism does a good job of explaining why.

The Obama administration’s 2011 budget includes many elements to disgruntle the average CFO or finance director, but few raise finance exec hackles at US multinationals as quickly as transfer pricing.

Budget proposals would require US corporations to pay tax immediately on returns of more than 30 percent traced to intangible assets owned by offshore subsidiaries in tax haven countries. The proposal sets an effective corporate tax rate threshold of 10 percent to identify tax haven jurisdictions.

Anyone impressed by the uptick in retail sales and the small decline in jobless claims last week ought to check out this article in the January issue of Harper's Magazine.

Since the article is behind a paywall, I'll summarize it here. The piece by Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the US Business and Industry Council, offers a particularly stark picture of what's needed for a sustainable recovery by the US economy.

Scores of articles have been written of late about the PRC's desire to end the U.S. greenback's role as the de facto global reserve currency. Mostly, these stories have zeroed in on Beijing's fears of a weakening dollar.

True enough, a deteriorating dollar will make China's goods more expensive for Joe the Plumber (or Josephine the Plumber, for all you Jane Withers fans out there). To keep that from happening, the central bank of China has become the true Bank of America, buying up around $1 trillion in U.S. debt, particularly short-term Treasury notes.

Pretty big deal, this settlement where UBS, the biggest private bank in the world, is going to start throwing its secret-bank-accouht customers under the bus. The Swiss giant has fought the U.S. tooth-and-nail in efforts to maintain client privacy. Word comes now that the jig is up.

This from the NY Times: "Of the names on the agency's original list, prosecutors are focused on several thousand Americans with offshore accounts containing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars."

This additional detail from the WSJ: Lawyers involved in the case now believe UBS will agree to turn over some 8,000 to 10,000 account identities.  IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman is quoted: "We will release more details when the Swiss government signs the agreement as early as next week."

The U.S. government originally had sought the names of 52,000 account holders it suspected of tax evasion.  Lucky and/or savvy UBS Swiss account holders have already taken advantage of an amnesty program rolled out earlier this year in which they were allowed to come clean and pay fines, presumably avoiding criminal tax-evasion charges. UBS is taking it on the chin here -- it's a blow to its business and the bank a few months ago agreed to a $780 million fine for hiding $50 billion in customer deposits.

The deal announced today is a victory for tax-evasion prosecutors and critics of the long-sacrosanct "offshore banking industry," a scam by any other name, and it represents perhaps the first serious nail in the coffin for the tradition by which wealthy people hide their assets.