Danielle DiMartino is one of the few "must reads" at the Dallas Morning News. She and Scott Burns are two of the best business columnists writing for a daily newspaper today. Her willingness to be frank about the housing bubble and the excess optimism of the Wall Street crowd is a refreshing contrast to many of the "cheerleader" types who write on the economy for daily newspapers.

Perhaps, that’s why she gets a lot of critical email as she suggests in today’s column for the News: "I’m often accused of being too negative."

What Danielle takes after in her current column is the fact that the U.S. jobs market is not quite as bright as the optimists would have us believe. Job numbers for December were only half as good as "economists were forecasting". The job picture for 2005 was worse than in 2004 and the first six months of 2005 were better than the last half of the year. According to DiMartino, "the construction sector contracted by 9,000 jobs in December".

To read her full report, link here (registration required).

Congressman Roy BluntA rarity … Viewpoints colunnists Ken Molberg and Tara Ross agree that Roy Blunt is the wrong man to succeed Tom DeLay.

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Rep. John Shadegg"Did we [Republicans] change Washington or did Washington change us?"

The question came from Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) this weekend, as he was interviewed by news anchor Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Wallace was interviewing each of the potential replacements for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

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The Wichita Eagle reports that warring Mexican gangs who need firearms increasingly look to the United States - and Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston in particular - to buy weapons.

Read the full story here.

(Wonder if they want to rethink their position on that wall idea?)

Alan GreenspanThe current issue of The Economist features a cover story on outgoing fed chairman Alan Greenspan handing over a stick of dynamite labeled "the economy" to his successor Ben Bernanke. The sub-headline of the article reads "The economy that Alan Greenspan is about to hand over is in a much less healthy state than is popularly assumed."

The article is very critical of the performance of Greenspan who is leaving office on January 31^st and expects to command six figure "speaking fees" for appearances before outside groups once he leaves the Fed.

Here is part of what the lead article has to say about Greenspan’s performance:

"The Fed held real interest rates negative for several years, and even today real rates remain low …. The Economist has long criticised Mr Greenspan for not trying to restrain the stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s, and then, after it burst, for inflating a housing bubble by holding interest rates low for so long. The problem is not the rising asset prices themselves but rather their effect on the economy. By borrowing against capital gains on their homes, households have been able to consume more than they earn. Robust consumer spending has boosted GDP growth, but at the cost of a negative personal saving rate, a growing burden of household debt and a huge current-account deficit."

The Economist goes on to warn that our current prosperity in the U.S. is not built on a solid foundation:

"Ben Bernanke, Mr Greenspan's successor, likes to explain America's current-account deficit as the inevitable consequence of a saving glut in the rest of the world. Yet a large part of the blame lies with the Fed's own policies, which have allowed growth in domestic demand to outstrip supply for no less than ten years ... Part of America's current prosperity is based not on genuine gains in income, nor on high productivity growth, but on borrowing from the future. The words of Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian economist of the early 20th century, nicely sum up the illusion: ‘It may sometimes be expedient for a man to heat the stove with his furniture. But he should not delude himself by believing that he has discovered a wonderful new method of heating his premises.’"

Rep. Bill Keffer

Keffer criticizes former Lt. Governor Bill Ratcliff for his claim that a "good" Christian should raise taxes to fund poverty programs.

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From NBC 5

More Than 350 Birds Seized In Cockfight Bust

Three Arrested, Charged With Animal Cruelty

FORT WORTH, Texas -- More than 350 roosters and hens are now staying in a Collin County shelter after a cockfighting operation is busted over the weekend.

Acting on an anonymous tip, Bexar County Sheriff's deputies descended on the site in southern Bexar County. Officers broke up the fighting ring and arrested property owner Pedro Lozano, 34, Elida Gonzalez, 31, and Jose Arce, 43.

Each faces felony charges of animal cruelty. A sheriff's office report identified Gonzalez as Lozano's girlfriend, and Arce as a money-taker for the operation.

The 368 seized animals are now in the care of the McKinney SPCA.

Our viewpoints columnist, Rufus Shaw, finds it ironic that the Dallas Morning News is criticizing African-American council members for not spending taxpayers money.

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Our movie reviewer finds that "Glory Road" takes a number of liberties with the facts behind Texas Western's basketball success, but he still finds the movie worth seeing.

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Assorted Cowboys-related observations from atop my Monday morning barstool. ... of course, it's a little early for that visual. Let's pretend instead that I'm standing around a water cooler, shall we?

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