The standard theory is that buying gold is a hedge against a weak dollar. The dollar has been falling in value for months in part because investors fear that the inflationary consequences of all the liquidity that the Fed has pumped into the global economy to avert a second Great Depression. But take a closer look at that dynamic: the dollar is weakening not because there is any imminent sign of inflation now but because the fledgling steps towards economic recovery make people assume that eventually inflation will be inevitable. (And, as Matthew Yglesias points out, the dollar is only now back to where it was before the financial crisis began.)

Notice the contradiction? Economic recovery, not disaster, is fueling the gold-buying binge.

No clearer evidence of this could be asked for than the data offered by today's markets -- the dollar strengthened and gold fell, as investors worried that the downgrade of Greece's credit rating, along with disappointing industrial production numbers from Germany and more problems in Dubai, signaled that the global economy is still in peril.

When real danger threatens -- where do investors put their money? Back in the dollar.

I suppose some movie aficionados might quibble with the "classic" sobriquet. But they would be foolish to do so. The original "Red Dawn" provided a key early showcase for the talents of both Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen and perfectly captured the cartoon elements of Reagan-era Cold War posturing. And while some moviegoers at the time might have judged unrealistic the prospect of a handful of plucky Michigan teenagers -- the Wolverines! -- fighting the mighty Red Army to a standstill, there's no getting around the historical reality that within five years of "Red Dawn's" premiere, the Soviet Union had effectively collapsed. As many a rowdy bar patron would discover in the future, you just don't mess around with Patrick Swayze. He will take you and your totalitarian communist army down.

The new "Red Dawn 2010" stars Josh Peck as one the latter-day teens determined to resist the forces of collectivism. Peck is best known as the shlubby half of the Nickelodeon teen duo that starred in "The Adventures of Drake and Josh." Here's hoping that Josh has been working out lately, because as last seen on Nick, he was no Patrick Swayze. But maybe that's just part of Hollywood's fiendish plan to lull the Chinese into a sense of complacency before our cultural commissars destroy the People's Republic just as they did the USSR.

The best parts of "Red Dawn 2010" -- judging from the various trailers and YouTube videos leaking across the Net, are the socialist realist Chinese propaganda posters adorning the crumbling walls of Detroit slums. Judging by the poster slogans, -- "Repairing Your Economy," "Helping You Back On Your Feet," "Defeating Your Enemy" (complete with a sledgehammer busting up the Capitol building) the Chinese have chosen to invade while the U.S. is in the middle of deep economic trouble. And by depicting Washington as the problem, the Chinese are deftly attempting to rally both the populist TeaParty Right and the disenchanted progressive left to their cause. Real socialists to save us from the faux socialists!

Given that the the invasion is supposed to occur in 2010, the chances that the U.S. will remain mired in the economic doldrums, with the masses yearning for for delivery from our woes via foreign hands, could be high. So here's a little more pressure for the Obama administration. Fix our economic problems now, or the Chinese will arrive to fix them for us.

But the substantive proposals rolled out in the administration's new three-pronged jobs plans add up to pretty small beer when compared with either the president's rhetoric or the challenges faced by the U.S. economy. Obama announced a series of tax cuts and incentives aimed at small businesses that sound remarkably GOP-friendly, called for another round of infrastructure spending, and promised to expand programs aimed at improving energy efficiency and boosting clean energy technology development. There's nothing wrong with any of these proposals, and there may even be some money for them, if the administration is able to follow through on its plan to employ unused TARP funds for job creation. But taken all together, they constitute little more than tinkering at the margins. Obama put no dollar figures on his call for new infrastructure investment, and Congress appears largely unwilling to take any ambitious new steps.

This does not necessarily represent an administration failure. As the president eloquently outlined last week, he faces a remarkably difficult puzzle: The economy needs to grow to have any realistic hope of reducing the deficit, but government measures aimed at boosting the economy will by definition further increase the already formidable deficit in the short term. Caught in that vice-grip, there is little maneuvering room for anything besides margin-tinkering.

Our best hope is that, in the absence of any new great shock to the economy, a fragile recovery gradually strengthens, boosted in some mild fashion by the various tweaks and initiatives the administration is now proposing. And our main reason for encouragement? Things don't look quite as bad now as they did a year ago.

From the speech:

Almost exactly one year ago, on a cold winter's day, I met with my new economic team at the headquarters of my presidential transition offices in Chicago. Over the course of four hours, my advisors presented an analysis of where the economy stood, accompanied by a chilling set of charts and graphs, predicting where we might end up. It was an unforgettable series of presentations.

Christy Romer, tapped to head the Council of Economic Advisers, and Larry Summers, who I'd chosen to head the National Economic Council, described an imminent downturn comparable in its severity to almost nothing since the 1930s. Tim Geithner, my incoming Treasury Secretary, reported that the financial system, shaken by the subprime crisis, had halted almost all lending, which in turn threatened to pull the broader economy into a downward spiral. And Peter Orszag, my incoming Budget Director, closed out the proceedings with an entirely dismal report on the fiscal health of the country, with growing deficits and debt stretching to the horizon. Having concluded that it was too late to request a recount, I tasked my team with mapping out a plan to tackle the crisis on all fronts.

For now, a second Great Depression has been averted, the financial system has been stabilized, and remarkably, deficit projections have consistently shrunk from the initial $1.8 trillion estimate for fiscal year 2009. That's something, at least.

On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged three executives of one of New Century Finance Corporation with securities fraud. New Century was one of the biggest subprime lenders in the United States, and one of the first to declare bankruptcy in the spring of 2007, helping set off the chain of events that brought down Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and forced Washington into crisis bailout mode.

The complaint filed by the SEC provides some intriguing context for helping to decide who to blame for all the bad loans.

At the peak of the bust, in 2005, New Century originated nearly $50 billion worth of mortgage loans. Some 30 percent of those loans were so-called "80/20 Combo Product" loans. The 80/20 product was actually two loans piggybacked together, the first for 80 percent of the home's value, and the second for the remaining 20 percent. With an 80/20 loan, the borrower didn't have to put any money down at all.

Great deal for the borrower -- but not so great for the lender or whoever bought the loans from the original lender (whether whole or as part of a securitized pool of loans.)

From the complaint:

New Century's 80/20 product had a high risk of first or early payment default, as the borrower had no equity in the property securing the loan. Without placing any of his or her own money at risk, in the form of a traditional down payment, the borrower could walk away from the loan as soon as market conditions justified such a move, without suffering a loss. As soon the nationwide rise in home prices abated in late 2005 and early 2006, and home prices began to decline, these borrowers were among the first to default on their payment obligations, thereby triggering, in ever increasing numbers, New Century's loan repurchase obligations.

(New Century was obligated to buy back any loans it had sold off to other investors if borrowers defaulted on their payments within a specified period.)

So let's think about this. Who should we blame more for this mess? The borrower who is making a completely rational financial decision to walk away from a busted deal, or the lender who is stupid enough to push such a mortgage product in the first place? And what about the likes of Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, who gobbled up as much of the mortgage-backed security crap created by New Century as they could?

Ideally, abuses such as the brain-dead no money down 80/20 combo loan would be precisely the kind of thing that a Consumer Financial Protection Agency would take a very dim view of. The irony being that it wouldn't be just the consumer that was being protected, but the lender, from its own folly.

The usual industry flunkies are screaming. U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donohue is looking "forward to working with the government to ensure we don't stifle our economic recovery."

But the prospect that the EPA is going to start telling power plants and refineries to clean up their act, today, are minimal. Even if a cap-and-trade plan was enacted by Congress, it wouldn't take effect for several years, by which point the U.S. presumably will no longer be mired in a deep recession. (And if it still is, then all bets are off.) The endangerment finding will sit in the administration's back pocket until then, potentially useful as negotiating leverage if a climate bill ever gets any momentum in the Senate, but not likely to be deployed until the economic situation has dramatically improved.

Will it impress anyone in Copenhagen? The endangerment finding will make for good headlines, and will give Obama something to tout in Denmark, and, perhaps most important, it is concrete proof that Obama is not George Bush. But will it encourage China or India to commit to hard CO2 reductions? Not very likely. The U.S. government will have to do something more than make a "finding" to make a difference.