Obama met with some representatives from the credit industry today in advance of his administration's effort to better regulate the industry. Which is the sort of thing that frequently frustrates Obama's left-leaning critics. But walking out, he gave some quick remarks that should comfort them, including this statement of regulatory principles:

Felix Salmon's in Dallas today giving a terribly depressing speech to the Regional Bond Dealers Association. A terribly depressing speech which, through the magic of the interwebs, can now depress all of us! In particular, I recommend the beginning, which takes on the prevailing wisdom that Wall Street developed an overly high tolerance for risk.

I'm pretty struck by news that Nancy Pelosi was informed that the government was wiretapping Jane Harman. This, it seems, is standard operating practice: According to the Post, "it is a 'tradition' for the top Democrat and Republican in the House to be alerted whenever a member is under surveillance using wiretaps or other methods." We don't know the exact date that Pelosi was informed of the wiretap, but we know it was a couple of years ago, which throws Pelosi's efforts to remove Harman from the chairmanship of the House Select Intelligence Committee into a new light. At the time, that fight was largely seen as Pelosi prosecuting a grudge against Harman.

The news is true: On May 18th, I'll be moving about two blocks east and two blocks south to the Washington Post's massive building. I will have part of a desk rather than much of an office. I will not have natural light. This blog, too, will change its home, moving to the "columnists and blogs" area of the Post's Business section. It will have a gray and white color scheme rather than a red one. It will have a .com address rather than a .org.

I don't think CBO Director Doug Elmendorf is quite the blog enthusiast that Peter Orszag was. But week by week, his blog is rediscovering its rhythm. In particular, Elmendorf has a useful post today summarizing a lecture he gave to Greg Mankiw's famed Intro to Econ class. It's as clean a breakdown of the contributors to the coming fiscal crackup as you're like to see.

If you were Ben Nelson, wouldn't you be loudly signaling that you're “fully prepared" to vote against health reform? A historic transformation of a $2 trillion industry and you are the hinge vote that might decide passage. A simple public servant like, say, Carl Levin, just votes for the package because it's a good thing to do and it won't pass the Senate without a lot of simple "yes" votes. But if you're lucky enough to be one of the complicated "yes" vote -- and there can only be a couple of those -- you get to decide what the final bill looks like. You get to decide the shape of American health care.