Leaks from the Super Committee show how Democrats and Republicans are proposing to meet their debt reduction goals. The Republicans propose a minimum of tax increases versus spending cuts, and even those increases are misleading, since they’re using different baselines.

As September drew to a close, residents of southwest Michigan found themselves taking in a little extra tritium, thanks to their daily habit of breathing. The tritium was courtesy of the 40-year-old Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Covert Township, which suffered its third “event” (as they are politely called) in less than two months, and was forced to vent an indeterminate amount of radioactive steam.

The reactor at Palisades was forced to scram after an accident caused an electrical arc in a transformer in the DC system that powers “indications and controls“–also known as monitoring devices, meters and safety valves.

While it is nice to see rectors shut themselves down when a vital system goes offline, remember that “turning off” a fission reactor is not like flicking a light switch. Shutting down a reactor is a process, and the faster it is done, the more strain it puts on the reactor and its safety and cooling systems. And even after fission is mitigated, a reactor core generates heat that requires a fully functional cooling system.

A former senior VP at Moody’s wrote an 80 page letter to federal regulators, blowing the whistle on systemic pressures placed by Moody’s business people on the ostensibly objective analysts. To those who are shocked by this, it helps to remember Econ 101: when you get paid by the people whose bonds you are rating, there’s a lot of incentive to keep the customer satisfied.

But it doesn’t stop there. Michael Hudson of UMKC notes that the perverse incentives of ratings agencies lead them to push against raising taxes to pay for things now. Instead, it’s better financially for the ratings agencies if governments keep taxes down but sell bonds . . . ’cause that’s more business for them.

Amazing what basic economics can teach you about the ratings agencies.

As near as I can tell, the only thing the Gang of Six has made more likely is default. It’s essentially the same deal that Eric Cantor and John Boehner rejected because it included tax increases. Maybe the increases are so vague and the abolition of the alternative minimum tax so attractive that this changes the perception among House Republicans, but I’m not sure why we should believe that. This is the group that passed the Cut, Cap and Balance Act yesterday, for a frame of reference. Indeed, John Boehner’s office said the plan “appears to fall short” of House goals.

If the Republicans were really worried about protecting the private sector from dangerous and unnecessary government uncertainty, they would vote to eliminate this foolish debt ceiling limit altogether.

The New York Times hits on a major reason for why the economy has struggled over the past several months. Government assistance has faded, turning the stimulus into anti-stimulus. While extended unemployment benefits will last until the end of the year, other stimulus-era programs to beef up government benefits, 20% of all compensation in the US, are slowly being pulled away, and as a result, consumer spending decreases and businesses see less sales. And it will only get worse.

As James Fallows points out, S&P is basically making a guess, no more informed or uninformed than any observer of politics. No modeling went into this threatened downgrade. “They’re saying they have an opinion on the state of Congressional-White house dealings on the budget,” writes Fallows. “Fine. Go on a talk show or start a blog.”

President Obama’s re-election is going to hinge on the top issue with voters, and that is jobs and the economy. Seven hundred thousand jobs can easily be the difference between Obama winning a close election thanks to a steadily recovering economy with official unemployment dropping to 7.9 percent by November 2012, and Obama losing because the economy seems to have effectively stalled with unemployment at 8.4 percent.

The Final Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is a fascinating history of the Great Crash of 2008. Join us as FDL’s Ed Walker hosts a special FDL Book Salon chat with Commissioner Byron Georgiou about the FCIC’s findings.

Moody’s economist, Stephen Hess is telling us the risk of holding US debt will rise because of the tax deal, and if we don’t offset this by cutting spending, the US is more likely to default on its sovereign debt. Absolute gibberish.