China and America decline to acknowledge what everyone else knows: China suppresses the value of its currency to gain a trade advantage over America. This is costing America untold numbers of manufacturers and millions of jobs. The U.S. Treasury Department, which is required by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 to name foreign currency manipulators in bi-annual reports, must label China in its April 15 account, then sanction China if it doesn’t begin balancing its currency.

Much discussion today about Chris Dodd as a potential candidate to replace Tim Geithner atop the Treasury Department, which I think overlooks a much better idea: get Byron Dorgan to oversee America’s economy and, specifically, Wall Street.

President-elect Barack Obama announced his economic transition team yesterday–and we’ll get to that–but first let’s take a look at the top economic stories from the week that you might not have heard–but need to know.

With so many recent headlines detailing the government’s policy position on some of the nation’s largest corporations, it’s important to remember that economic policy ought to include people living at the other end of the economic spectrum.