In the Water, In the Air: Tuesday, December 17, 2013.

FISCAL FOLLIES -- DECEMBER 2013 CONTINUING RESOLUTION

Senate GOP fails in final bid to restore military pension cuts to budget bill (Fox News -- Politics, 12/17).

Disabled Military Retirees Not Exempt from Pension Cuts in Budget Deal (Elizabeth Harrington, The Washington Free Beacon, 12/17).

Section-By-Section Analysis Of The Bipartisan Budget Act Of 2013 (United States Senate Committee on the Budget -- Republicans, 12/16).

Spending Caps Have Worked, but Ryan-Murray Budget Would Lift Them (Romina Boccia and Michael Sargent, The Foundry, 12/16).

Unemployment Benefits Are Ending for 1.3 Million Americans. What's That All About? (Erika Eichelberger, Mother Jones, 12/17).

ECONOMIC REPORTS

How Britain Returned to Growth (George Osborne, The Wall Street Journal -- Opinion, 12/16).

Economic Freedom and Labor Market Conditions: Evidence from the States (Lauren R. Heller and E. Frank Stephenson, Wiley Online Library, 07/01).

ECONOMICS 101

How Pope Francis Misunderstands the Free Market (Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg -- Opinion, 12/16).

Why conservatives just don't get Pope Francis' anti-poverty crusade (Elizabeth Stoker, The Week, 12/17).

SPENDING-SIDE REFORM

Why do we even need a farm bill? (Charles, The Washington Post -- WP Opinions, 12/16).

Government Blatantly Wastes $30 Billion This Year (Brianna Ehley, The Fiscal Times -- Policy + Politics, 12/17).

"Wastebook" report singles out $30B in federal spending (CBS News -- CBS This Morning, 12/17).

MIXED-SIDE AND REGULATORY REFORM

Low Import Duty Trigger Puts U.S. at a Disadvantage (Philip Finiello, Free Enterprise, 12/16).

It’s Not OK That Your Employees Can’t Afford to Eat (Peter Cappelli, Harvard Business Review -- HBR Blog Network, 12/16).

Making Financial Regulation AntiFragile (Todd Zywicki, Library of Law and Liberty, 12/17*).

First Volcker Victim? Zions Dumping Its Hedge Funds (Matt Levine, Bloomberg, 12/16).

GROWTH AND JOBS

Blame Congress for unemployment (Duncan Black, USA Today, 12/17).

MOBILITY AND EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY

How the Inequality/Growth Debate Has Evolved Over Time (On the Economy -- Jared Bernstein Blog, 12/16).

The Case for Worrying About Inequality is Still Overstated (Scott Winship, e21, 12/16).

Who’s Really Waging the Class War? (Bill Moyers, The Nation, 12/12).

GOVERNMENT FINANCE AND FINANCIAL POLICY

Taper or no taper, the Fed will never end QE: Marc Faber (Alex Rosenberg, CNBC, 12/17).

The Stupidest (and most prominent) QE Chart in the World (Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism, 12/17).

The Fed might taper bond buying this week. Here’s everything you need to know. (Neil Irwin, The Washington Post -- Wonkblog, 12/16).

Why a Fed taper will be good for the economy (Sanjay Sanghoee, CNN Money, 12/17).

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BANKRUPTCY

How One Mayor Pulled Back His City From Potential Bankruptcy (Emily Badger, National Journal, 12/16).

 GLOBAL ECONOMY

India’s Aspirational Volcano (Roger Cohen, The New York Times -- The Opinion Pages, 12/16).