When I could last week, I watched Greenspan's testimony to Congress, and it became quite hard to take. Maybe he just didn't feel good that day, but it's clear that the battle lines for the next presidential election are evident even in these hearings. The beating he took from the Senate meetings the following day became newsworthy as well. As can be expected, there was appropriate grandstanding.

First, one representative said that the number of jobs lost was greater than the Great Depression. Might be, but while our population is only three times larger, our workforce is about four times larger (especially with more women and minorities in the workforce compared to 1930) and our GDP is more than 12 times larger in real terms. In fact, this week's data reflected a drop below the supposedly important 400,000 new claims level, down to 386,000. Continuing claims were down as well, and the four week moving average of new claims dropped to 419,000. This was viewed as yet more positive economic news, as well it should.

There are those on these committees who regularly disagree with Greenspan, like Senator Sarbanes (D-Md.) who have extraordinarily interesting talks and debates to which anyone interested in economics and economic policy would do well to listen. Sarbanes refused to be part of the pure silliness that others were purporting as intelligent questioning. I'm not a Greenspan fan, but this was far over the line.