It would be irresponsible in the extreme for an individual to forestall a personal recession by taking out newer, bigger loans when the old loans can't be repaid. However, this is precisely what we are planning on a national level.

I believe these ideas hold sway largely because they promise happy, pain-free solutions. They are the economic equivalent of miracle weight-loss programs that require no dieting or exercise. The theories permit economists to claim mystic wisdom, governments to pretend that they have the power to dispel hardship with the whir of a printing press, and voters to believe that they can have recovery without sacrifice.

Krugman is best interpreted as a committed social democrat and Democratic partisan. My main contention is that his social-democratic impetus sometimes trumps people's interests, notably poor people's interests. The tension surfaces in what Krugman has written about immigration and the threat it is poses to the US welfare state. But the tension is found in his writings on several topics, and, importantly, in omissions in his writings. Krugman has almost never come out against extant government interventions, even ones that expert economists seem to agree are bad, and especially so for the poor.

What are the odds that (a) GM, Chrysler, thousands of auto dealerships and the UAW will achieve viability by March, and (b) the next administration will actually call in the loan if they don't? Somewhere between zip and zero, I would guess.