Krugman is a man on fire lately, all right - in all the years I've been reading him I've never seen so much exasperation in his writing as in the last couple of weeks. He is horrified at the prospect that we'd clamp down on public spending right now. He sees us whistling in the dark pretending we don't desperately need the jobs that spending brings.

He also seems truly disgusted at politicos and the policymakers who serve them making playing for voters by frightening them with cheap talk about the deficit.

As a Canadian, I need to apologize. Harper, our asshole Bush-lite Prime Minister, explicitly went into the G-20 seeking deficit and debt reduction, with timelines. The news Saturday (besides talking about how my precious city was burning) was all about how he was one of the voices calling for slashing spending while Obama was calling for more stimulus spending. They ended up with a compromise. A compromise that likely isn't good for your economy, and anything that's bad for your economy ends up being bad for ours as well.

So, although I voted against Harper, I'm going to respond to these problems the Canadian way and say, "Sorry, world, for helping to prolong this recession and maybe turn it into a depression. Our bad."

I'd wager it's passing for judicious policy discussion because the people involved in that discussion are finally being forced to admit that it's all just one ginormous crap-shoot, and that nobody (least of all the so-called "experts") really has any idea whatsoever as to how any of it actually works.

@3, it's that we have no civic or political apparatus able to keep from panicking in the absence of certainty. We'd rather do fuck all than take a risk and commit to something that's merely "most likely to succeed". We'd rather sit on our couches, refusing to act without a guaranteed result.

Meanwhile, Ireland is giving them what they want and the market is thanking them for taking one for the team by charging them — wait for it — an extra 3 points on bonds.

Of course, Seattle, King County, and Washington State are just as stupid, raising sales taxes, cutting services and wages, and whatever else they can think of to spook what consumers there are who have any money into saving. All in the hopes dragging our recession on longer than everyone else, just like Ireland.

Might as well put real Republicans in office if our Democrats are going to act like them anyway. At least then we wouldn't have to cut them any slack.

I don't know, for every economist who says "we need to spend our way out of this recession," there are two who say "belt-tightening is the only answer." I've pretty much come to the conclusion that nobody knows what the hell they're talking about.

Krugman is right, which is why this week's issue of the New Yorker is filled with ads for the lower-tax for business higher-GDP Canadian wonderland, where stock brokers after a hard days work on Mergers and Acquisitions go home to their igloo to enjoy a nice frosty drink.

oh, and in case I didn't echo CN @2, Harper is an Ass.

Write that down.

A. S. S.

Harper kinda forgot to mention that the only reason the Canadian banks didn't blow up is 'cause the Liberals, NDP and Bloc wouldn't let him and his cronies deregulate them. Whoopsies.

@9 As if Harper would ever remember to mention anything like that. Having the Liberals in charge 2/3 of the time really helps stabilize our economy such that a few years with the Cons in charge hasn't destroyed us.

Elenchos @5 - hold your fire on King County, Seattle, and Washington State. Sure, there's plenty to gripe about, but the kind of stimulus measures Krugman's talking about are only possible at the federal level, because state and local governments can't borrow money to balance their budgets like the feds can. That's why the federal government needs to step in with state and local aid here, and at the low, low price of 3.05%? You'd be an idiot not to take it.

Bush was referring to Ronald Reagan when he used the term "Voodoo Economics". I would hardly consider Reagan, or his politics to be "liberal".

@11

Cutting staffing and wages and acquisitions is the opposite of stimulus. Reducing the spending power of consumers with higher sales taxes is also the opposite of stimulus. Raising rents with higher property taxes is the opposite of stimulus. Whereas a progressive income tax mostly takes money away from Wall Street.

These things are no-brainers that you could take care of before you have to think about borrowing.