President Barack Obama said he believes the global financial system remains at risk of implosion with the failure of Citigroup or AIG, touching off “an even more destructive recession and potentially depression.”

His remarks came in a “60 Minutes” interview in which he was pressed by an incredulous Steve Kroft for laughing and chuckling several times while discussing the perilous state of the world’s economy.

“You're sitting here. And you're— you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, ‘I mean, he's sitting there just making jokes about money—’ How do you deal with— I mean: explain. . .” Kroft asks at one point.

“Are you punch-drunk?” Kroft says.

“No, no. There's gotta be a little gallows humor to get you through the day,” Obama says, with a laugh.

"I think the president would be concerned that this bill may have some problems in going too far — the House bill may go too far in terms of some — some legal issues, constitutional validity, using the tax code to surgically punish a small group," Bernstein said in a television interview. "That may be a dangerous way to go."

You seem to like examples of innumeracy and economic illiteracy from the main stream media. Here's one from this week's Newsweek, by Fareed Zakaria:

Take the steel industry. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that the "buy American" provision will result in an increased domestic production of about 0.5 million metric tons of steel every year. Unfortunately, steel is a highly mechanized industry, as are most manufacturing industries in the United States. The boost in production will translate into 1,000 jobs, which in a labor force of 140 million is insignificant. America's steel industry exports 9 million metric tons of steel every year. Even if 1 percent of those exports were lost because of retaliation by other countries—a very conservative assumption—that would result in 6,500 jobs being lost in the same industry.

So, if I read Zakaria correctly, ADDING 500,000 metric tons of steel production CREATES 1,000 jobs. (500 metric tons/job)

LOSING 90,000 metric tons (1% of 9 million) LOSES 6,500 jobs. (13.8 metric tons/job)

Quite an inflection point. And good editing at Newsweek!

Zakaria is right to defend free trade and to be concerned about protectionism during the economic downturn, but does anybody read this stuff before they go to press? Better question, does anybody read it at all?