Tis the season to be compassionate.

And I guess that also applies to those who are allowed to grace the Wall Street Journal’s oped page –

The opinions there rarely come as much of a surprise.  One standard critique of the blogosphere is that it brings together people who already agree to reinforce their pre-existing convictions.  

That hardly seems to be feature unique to blogland: the Wall Street Journal oped page has long served a similar function.  But I was still surprised by the Malpass WSJ oped -- an oped that strongly suggests that the US trade deficit reflects surging business investment in the US, financed by aging, slow growing Europe and Japan.