Two quickies

Paul Krugman on America Going Dark, as a small town elected official, I can only say, yeah, he's right. One of the things I think that infuriates the right with the election of Obama is we're now at the culmination point of "must cut government" programs. And Obama, at least his politics, threatens to swerve the ship at the last moment. And while we might avoid placing said ship high on the rocks (please, Zort, let us avoid placing it high on the rocks), we've been scrapping bottom for a long while (see the anemic GDP growth of the past decade) and the ship's haul is now compromised. If we go down or make it to a dry dock for repairs all depends on how well and how much the bilge pumps work. And while the right has been screaming about "printing money" and how that brings about inflation, we're actually facing a much worse outcome. What's one of those tools the Fed has to avoid those rocky shores, it can print more money. This was one of the major concerns during the debate on how large to make the stimulus (and one of the reasons much of that money hasn't been spent yet is much of the stimulus was tax cuts, which haven't been used/claimed).

And, the whackaloon quotient goes up again.