[Paladin2]

"The basic issue, says Krugman, is a lack of demand. American consumers and businesses, aren't spending enough, and efforts to get them to open their wallets have gone nowhere. Krugman's solution: The federal government needs to step in and spend. A lot."

P2's solution: Get rid of 0bama, Bernake, Pelosi and Reid.

[Popman]

To illustrate his point: why more debt wil never drive GDP growth to erase the debt...

Two cars are in a race to a finish line a 100 miles away... One car (federal debt) with no speed limit...pedal to the metal

The other car (ability to pay the debt ) can go only the speed limit...

At some point the race is over and we lose ....Debt wins and growth never catches up to make it a tie...

Put a spending limit on debt and we might find a way out of this mess without too much pain...

[exDemMom]

Would the U.S. economy improve if the federal government borrowed and spent an extra half a trillion dollars this year for example?

Yes, it would.

The author of this column is partially correct, just as he claimed Krugman is partially correct. This is just the first of a few inaccuracies that jumped out at me.

We cannot expect extra government spending to improve the economy, even in the short term. We didn't see that with the two huge "stimulus" dumpings of cash into the economy; there is no reason to think we would see economic improvement with another "stimulus" spending.

Increased government spending leads to inflation. Inflation leads to having to bring wheelbarrows full of cash to buy bread, and finding more value in cash as a firestarter than as a bartering medium.

The only way to encourage a robust economy is to reduce the burden of government. Any economist who doesn't recognize that is not an economist worth listening to.

[bravo whiskey]

because even a blind squirrel finds a nut occassionally?

root hog or die.