1. Teacher efficiency is analyzed in LA by the LA Times. It turns out that what teachers are paid for are not related to their teaching effectivity. The next step towards sanity would be to create these links, and to find some ways to actually fire the poorly performing teachers.
2. A survey from Fidelity suggests that a lot of people are borrowing against their 401(k)'s. This is another factor keeping consumer spending high relative to private sector income.
3. Tyler Cowen looks at whether it was the fiscal policy of Australia that has helped their economy avoid a deep recession. He mentions Australia's connection with China's economic demand, which seems to be the dominant variable. However, he leaves out their high trend inflation, which helps them avoid problems other central banks reach when they hit the zero bound.
4. A caricature of futurists. Not entirely inaccurate.
5. Spain's real debt is higher than it appears in Eurostat data.