In the Water, In the Air: Wednesday, December 18, 2013.

FISCAL FOLLIES -- DECEMBER 2013 CONTINUING RESOLUTION

We Just Got One Step Closer to a Budget Deal -- But Now I Need Your Help (Senator Patty Murray, The Huffington Post -- Huff Post Politics, 12/17).

D.C. gets the vapors, calls sequester too much (Charles Hurt, The Washington Times, 12/17).

Budget Bill Passes, Is Headed to President's Desk (Caitlin Huey-Burns, RealClearPolitics, 12/18).

FISCAL FOLLIES -- FEBRUARY/MARCH 2014 DEBT LIMIT

Republicans Compromise on the Budget, but Don’t Expect Them To Compromise on the Debt Ceiling (Eleanor Clift, The Daily Beast -- Politics, 12/18).

ECONOMIC REPORTS

Welfare Rules Databook: State TANF Policies as of July 2012 (David Kassabian, Erika Huber, Elissa Cohan and Linda Giannarelli, Urban Institute, 12/13).

Spending Patterns of Families Receiving Means-tested Government Assistance (Ann C. Foster and William R. Hawk, United States Department of Labor -- Bureau of Labor Statistics -- Beyond the Numbers, December 2013).

ECONOMICS 101

Productivity Up, Future Uncertain (Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, 12/16).

THE NATURE OF POLITICS

The Next President Won’t Save Us (James Poulos, The Daily Beast -- Politics, 12/18).

REVENUE-SIDE REFORM

Income Tax Deductions for Sales Taxes: A Step Away from Tax Fairness (Citizens for Tax Justice, 12/17).

SPENDING-SIDE REFORM

Is the Safety Net Just Masking Tape? (Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times -- The Opinion Pages, 12/17).

MIXED-SIDE AND REGULATORY REFORM

Subsidizing Rich and Poor: There are better ways to help workers than the minimum wage (Ike Brannon, The Weekly Standard, 12/23).

What You Missed Amid the Volcker Rule's Finalization (Hester Peirce, RealClearMarkets, 12/18).

MOBILITY AND EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY

Inequality Does Not Matter: The poor and the middle class are falling behind, and it has nothing to do with the 1 percent (Kevin D. Williamson, National Review Online, 12/18).

Of 'Equality' and Other Ancient Frauds: The futility of income redistribution (William Murchison, The American Spectator, 12/17).

Obama Is Trying to Fix Inequality by Hiring the Same Hacks Who Caused It (Robert Scheer, The Nation, 12/17).

GOVERNMENT FINANCE AND FINANCIAL POLICY

Fed to taper bond buying by $10 billion a month (JeeYeon Park, CNBC -- The Fed, 12/18).

The Fed should stop the easy money (Chicago Tribune -- Editorials, 12/16).

Fed to Start Unwinding Its Stimulus Next Month (Binyamin Appelbaum, The New York Times -- Business Day Economy, 12/18).

QE: The greatest subsidy to the rich ever? (Robert Frank, CNBC -- Inside Wealth, 12/18).

What Fed tapering means for you: Why investors aren’t the only ones who will feel the pinch (Quentin Fottrell, MarketWatch, 12/18).

The Bernanke Fed's Transparency Has Been Rather Opaque (Joao Gomes, RealClearMarkets, 12/18).

What the Fed meeting could mean for the dollar (Dhara Ranasinghe, CNBC -- Currencies, 12/17).

Fed Monetary Policy Can't Solve Our Economic Ills (William Poole, Investors.com -- Viewpoint, 12/17).

Three reasons the Fed should taper QE3 (Rex Nutting, MarketWatch, 12/17).

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BANKRUPTCY -- DETROIT

Moody's lowers N.J. debt outlook to negative, citing slow recovery (Salvador Rizzo, NJ.com, 12/17).

Who’s Really To Blame for Detroit’s Financial Problems? (David Sirota, In These Times, 12/13).

PUBLIC PENSIONS

Deadbeat Governments (James Surowiecki, The New Yorker -- The Financial Page, 12/23).

GLOBAL ECONOMY

Putin's Conservative State Capitalism (Anders Aslund, The Moscow Times, 12/17).

SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Earth’s Quietest Place Will Drive You Crazy in 45 Minutes (Smithsonian.com, 12/17).

The Secret of Comedy Really Is Timing (Tom Jacobs, Pacific Standard, 12/17).

Endless fun: The question is not whether we can upload our brains onto a computer, but what will become of us when we do (Michael Graziano, aeon magazine, 12/18).