Planet Money

Every time I hear the "Planet Money" correspondents on "All Things Considered," I reach for the change channel button. The reports are invariably cutesy, trite, and somewhere between uninformative and misleading. Now we have Adam Davidson colonizing the NY Times, promising to "demystify complicated economic issues." His first installment? Creating jobs is "practically impossible in our current capitalist democracy." After the obligatory bow to "he said, she said," featuring one-line caricatures of archaic Keynesians and do-nothing Chicagoans, Davidson offers platitudes, urging us all to buck up and make the most of it. "An economic downturn is a great time to learn things." Yes, in your unexpected surfeit of leisure time you could learn to sell apples on the street corner, or turn tricks.