Red Ink, Black Ink

Here's two pieces of agency economic news that aren't quite what they seem at first glance. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation reported Wednesday that it finished fiscal 2006 with a deficit of $18.1 billion. The Postal Service, meanwhile, said it ended up with a $900 million surplus. But the PBGC's report was actually good news, because the $18 billion figure is down from a shortfall of $22.8 billion in 2005 and a record $23.3 billion in 2004. And the Postal Service is still required to put $3 billion worth of pension overpayments into an escrow account, meaning that it technically ran a deficit of $2.1 billion.