Monday update: Benko chides Frank on the gold standard; Kudlow sees a possible debt deal; Salsman blames Bernanke for the Great Recession.

From Forbes, Ralph Benko chides progressive writer Thomas Frank for dismissing the gold standard.

On NRO, Larry Kudlow sees a grand debt bargain including tax cuts as possible.

At Forbes, Richard Salsman argues Fed Chairman Bernanke caused the Great Recession by allowing the yield curve to invert in 2007.

On The Kudlow Report, John Harwood profiles Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty:



The NY Sun notes the irony that Bernard von NotHaus will go to jail for minting silver coins that are worth more today than when he made them, while the Federal Reserve prints dollars that continue to lose value.

In The WSJ, Stephen Moore reports that after a two-week government shutdown, Minnesota’s Democratic governor has agreed to deep spending cuts without tax increases.

In the goofball analysis of the week, Newsweek’s Daniel Altman suggests today’s American “narcissism” stems from supply-side economics.

This rhetoric—that Americans can have everything without having to pay for it—dates back to the Reagan era, when an economist named Arthur Laffer suggested that lowering tax rates would result in more revenue by spurring spending among businesses and consumers. He was wrong, but it’s clear from the budget debate in Washington that people still believe him.

In The WSJ, Michael Boskin finds that without spending cuts, taxes will need to rise substantially on all tax payers.