Does anyone know what Krugman is referring to

[ProSense]

here:

But he can’t get his new plan through Congress because approval for his economic policies has plummeted, partly because his policies are seen to have failed, partly because job-creation policies are conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts. And as a result, the recession rages on, unchecked.

"Plummeted"? "Failed"? WTH?

Most recent poll numbers from Newsweek:

"Next, as I read you the names of some people in politics, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of each one. If I mention someone you never heard of before this interview, just tell me. What about Barack Obama?"

Favorable 72%


"How confident are you that, as President, Barack Obama will be able to turn around the economy? Are you very confident, somewhat confident, not too confident, or not at all confident?"
3/4-5/09

Very Confident 25%
Somewhat Confident 40%


"How much longer do you think the current economic recession is likely to last? Would you say less than 12 months, one to two years, three to five years, OR more than five years?"

Less Than 12 Months 12%
One to Two Years 54%

[PM Martin]

1. If Obama waits until the end of the year

to enact another stimulus bill, his approval ratings would have fallen by then.

[ProSense]

4. So he's predicting failure?

O.K., that’s a warning, not a prediction. But economic policy is falling behind the curve, and there’s a real, growing danger that it will never catch up.

How constructive!

[FrenchieCat]

2. Krugman's goal revealed,

Then he can be crowned Cassandra of the century?

After all, he has a job at Princeton guaranteed, even if the NYT goes under.

[bluestateguy]

3. Krugman is getting to be increasingly curmudgeonly

He makes some good points, but if he really wants Obama to succeed (as I'm sure he does) then he will give the president some space for awhile.

[Uzybone]

5. It took lots of blood sweat and tears to pass the original stimulus

but Paul Krugman thinks it would have been easier to pass one double its size just like that. Thats why he is a Nobel prize winning economist, and a lousy reader of politics.

[stopbush]

25. No, I believe that what Krugman knows is needed is actually closer to

what Obama would have proposed if he thought he could get it through Congress, but Obama had to compromise to get what he could at this time.

Krugman's argument - in this and many other columns - is that Obama should have just gone for the whole thing at once. He has also stated that to do so may have totally freaked out the population, but as an economist, he's saying that the population is going to be freaked out down the road anyway when Obama has to come back and ask for the amount he knew he needed back in January but was afraid to ask for. Krugman's point is that by asking for too little, Obama's package won't do enough, will be seen as failing and will make it that much harder for him to do in two steps what he actually wanted to do in one step.

The analogy might be treating a cancer patient by removing only half the tumors in the person's body because the patient's family thinks it would be too drastic to remove all the tumors at once, even when you know from the get-go that you better remove all the tumors at once to be successful, then coming back 6-9 months down the road to remove the rest of the tumors only to find that the patient had died.

[Vattel]

50. Do you really think that Obama couldn't have got a larger

stimulus bill to pass? Krugman thinks that if he had been less timid vis-a-vis the Republican opposition, and had educated the American public on the nature of the crisis, he could have. I suspect that his reading of the politics here is correct, but maybe I have too much faith in Obama's ability to sell what he wants to the American people.

[Better Believe It]

52. It was written by three Republicans and conservative Democrats which explains it's weakness

It just won't do the job intended. That should be obvious to anyone not wearing blinders.

Obama should have presented bold plan to Congress that would have jolted the economy. Instead President Obama let conservative Democrats in the Senate join forces with three so-called "moderate" Republicans to weaken an already inadequate (Roubini says puny) stimulus bill. Slightly more than 10% of the stimulus bill will be spent for job creation this year. A piss in the ocean compared to what is necessary to stop the slide into a full scale Great Depression II.

We urgently need a new stimulus bill.

[Cha]

6. Sure, that's Krugman being

he his overinflated, mosquito sucking self.

[DJ13]

7. Krugman sometimes believes the inside the beltway spin instead of reality

In the early primaries he was berating Obama based on the empty spin by the MSM too.

[depakid]

8. He's making a prediction of what's likely to be the case 6 months from now

given the policy status quo.

And he has a pretty impressive track record on these sorts of deals over the years. When you read The Great Unravelling, many of the pieces are astonishingly prescient.

[ProSense]

16. No, he's

predicting Obama will fail based on what: his reading of the current situation?

So he's convinced Obama isn't doing what is needed and speculating about him not getting the support leading to failure.

I mean, read this article:

As I read it, this dismissal — together with the continuing failure to announce any broad plans for bank restructuring — means that the White House has decided to muddle through on the financial front, relying on economic recovery to rescue the banks rather than the other way around. And with the stimulus plan too small to deliver an economic recovery ... well, you get the picture.

Sooner or later the administration will realize that more must be done. But when it comes back for more money, will Congress go along?

Republicans are now firmly committed to the view that we should do nothing to respond to the economic crisis, except cut taxes — which they always want to do regardless of circumstances. If Mr. Obama comes back for a second round of stimulus, they’ll respond not by being helpful, but by claiming that his policies have failed.

The broader public, by contrast, favors strong action. According to a recent Newsweek poll, a majority of voters supports the stimulus, and, more surprisingly, a plurality believes that additional spending will be necessary. But will that support still be there, say, six months from now?

Also, an overwhelming majority believes that the government is spending too much to help large financial institutions. This suggests that the administration’s money-for-nothing financial policy will eventually deplete its political capital.

So here’s the picture that scares me: It’s September 2009, the unemployment rate has passed 9 percent, and despite the early round of stimulus spending it’s still headed up. Mr. Obama finally concedes that a bigger stimulus is needed.

But he can’t get his new plan through Congress because approval for his economic policies has plummeted, partly because his policies are seen to have failed, partly because job-creation policies are conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts. And as a result, the recession rages on, unchecked.

O.K., that’s a warning, not a prediction. But economic policy is falling behind the curve, and there’s a real, growing danger that it will never catch up.

"But will Congress go along"? (Is he anticipating defections among the Dems?)

"Republicans...they’ll respond not by being helpful, but by claiming that his policies have failed"? (Were they ever helpful?)

It's an article built entirely on the premise that Obama doesn't get it and his heading down a path toward failure.

[depakid]

19. "the premise that Obama doesn't get it and his heading down a path toward failure."

Seems to me and a LOT of eminent economists that that's what the evidence and the numbers show up to this point.

Obama's CENTER RIGHT team DOESN'T GET IT.

Whether circumstances will cause them to shift away from ideological approaches on the stimulus and on dealing with insolvent banks to form effective, reality based policies remains to be seen.

[ProSense]

21. So Krugman and other economists have made that determination that Obama doesn't get it?

It's one thing to call for bolder action, but how the hell would Krugman be able to determine that Obama doesn't get it?

[depakid]

28. They're looking at the policies- and the numbers which don't add up

and also in Krugman's case more than say, Dean Baker or Joseph Stiglitz- the potential political fallout. The general public doesn't like the bank bailouts- and is growing increasingly impatient with the lack of resolution and the perception that those responsible are just walking around scot free.

Six months from now- that perception will be amplified by higher unemployment numbers and general mailaise over the state of the economy. That's going to be the case almost no matter what- but choosing less effective policies now will make it be worse than it needs to be- and put pressure on the already barely functional Senate to halt further spending bills- and further bailouts.

Krugman's certainly no genius in foreseeing that.

[ProSense]

30. "The general public doesn't like the bank bailouts- and is growing increasingly impatient"

Where is the proof that people are growing increasing impatient?

"Six months from now- that perception will be amplified by higher unemployment numbers..."

Really? Obama has stressed that it will get worse before it gets better, and currently, the majority of people expect this situation to drag out for at least two years.

Still, predicting people's future response to scenarios that are currently hypothetical makes no sense. In order for the hypotheticals to be true, the responses have to play out that way, and there is nothing now that indicates that people will abandon Obama.

[elleng]

37. Here's some 'proof.'

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/09/national/w183250D92.DTL

Would be awful if Dem caucus can't keep itself together behind Prez O. But to what extent could reps muster enough to step in and take over?

People must be patient, and prolly would be w/o msm, ya think?

[dkf]

36. Job losses are worse than what was predicted.

Therefore more stimulus is needed to counteract that.

The problem is if the economy starts in a downward spiral that feeds upon itself it is even harder to pull out of it.

Its a vicious cycle.

[stopbush]

9. You know, you simply misread a hypothetical that Krugman

threw out in a column.

This entire thread is baseless, meaningless scare mongering. Krugman has been spot on in his economic predictions. Your thread reads like freeper-think.

[ProSense]

11. The sentence before this doens't make hypothetical predictions about failure okay.

The point in it's entirety is predicting failure.

Also, an overwhelming majority believes that the government is spending too much to help large financial institutions. This suggests that the administration’s money-for-nothing financial policy will eventually deplete its political capital.

So here’s the picture that scares me: It’s September 2009, the unemployment rate has passed 9 percent, and despite the early round of stimulus spending it’s still headed up. Mr. Obama finally concedes that a bigger stimulus is needed.

But he can’t get his new plan through Congress because approval for his economic policies has plummeted, partly because his policies are seen to have failed, partly because job-creation policies are conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts. And as a result, the recession rages on, unchecked.

O.K., that’s a warning, not a prediction. But economic policy is falling behind the curve, and there’s a real, growing danger that it will never catch up.

Actually warning about failure...based on what?

"Your thread reads like freeper-think."

Actually that's the feeling I got reading Krugman.

[stopbush]

12. You misrepresent the meat of Krugman's column.

I suggest you and other readers go back to the first sentence of the column and read the whole thing in its entirety.

He is not at all saying what you accuse him of saying.

[ProSense]

17. No I didn't, I asked a question, and presented the current numbers.

What exactly is Krugman basing this hypothetical situation on?

[stopbush]

22. Here ya go:

Op-Ed Columnist
Behind the Curve

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 8, 2009

President Obama’s plan to stimulate the economy was “massive,” “giant,” “enormous.” So the American people were told, especially by TV news, during the run-up to the stimulus vote. Watching the news, you might have thought that the only question was whether the plan was too big, too ambitious.
Skip to next paragraph
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Yet many economists, myself included, actually argued that the plan was too small and too cautious. The latest data confirm those worries — and suggest that the Obama administration’s economic policies are already falling behind the curve.

To see how bad the numbers are, consider this: The administration’s budget proposals, released less than two weeks ago, assumed an average unemployment rate of 8.1 percent for the whole of this year. In reality, unemployment hit that level in February — and it’s rising fast.

Employment has already fallen more in this recession than in the 1981-82 slump, considered the worst since the Great Depression. As a result, Mr. Obama’s promise that his plan will create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 looks underwhelming, to say the least. It’s a credible promise — his economists used solidly mainstream estimates of the impacts of tax and spending policies. But 3.5 million jobs almost two years from now isn’t enough in the face of an economy that has already lost 4.4 million jobs, and is losing 600,000 more each month.

There are now three big questions about economic policy. First, does the administration realize that it isn’t doing enough? Second, is it prepared to do more? Third, will Congress go along with stronger policies?

On the first two questions, I found Mr. Obama’s latest interview with The Times anything but reassuring.

“Our belief and expectation is that we will get all the pillars in place for recovery this year,” the president declared — a belief and expectation that isn’t backed by any data or model I’m aware of. To be sure, leaders are supposed to sound calm and in control. But in the face of the dismal data, this remark sounded out of touch.

And there was no hint in the interview of readiness to do more.

A real fix for the troubles of the banking system might help make up for the inadequate size of the stimulus plan, so it was good to hear that Mr. Obama spends at least an hour each day with his economic advisors, “talking through how we are approaching the financial markets.” But he went on to dismiss calls for decisive action as coming from “blogs” (actually, they’re coming from many other places, including at least one president of a Federal Reserve bank), and suggested that critics want to “nationalize all the banks” (something nobody is proposing).

As I read it, this dismissal — together with the continuing failure to announce any broad plans for bank restructuring — means that the White House has decided to muddle through on the financial front, relying on economic recovery to rescue the banks rather than the other way around. And with the stimulus plan too small to deliver an economic recovery ... well, you get the picture.

Sooner or later the administration will realize that more must be done. But when it comes back for more money, will Congress go along?

etc...

The numbers are clearly presented in Krugman's piece. He is projecting those numbers and trends out into the future. That's what economists do.

[ProSense]

24. But

Sooner or later the administration will realize that more must be done. But when it comes back for more money, will Congress go along?

That is where Krugman begins to build his failure scenario.

[stopbush]

23. You presented current numbers of Obama's popularity with the public.

Krugman is presenting economic numbers and the trends in those economic numbers and projecting them into the future. He is then hypothesizing that Obama's popularity will fall if unemployment continues to rise.

What aren't you getting here? You're presenting one number, Krugman is presenting something else.

[ProSense]

26. I'm asking

how does Krugman come to these conclusions? Even if it's highly likely that Obama will have to go back to Congress for another round of stimulus, why is Krugman so certain that support for his policies will plummet leading to his inability to get his plan through Congress?

What is this based on? The stimulus bill is a month old, the administration a couple of weeks older. The TARP is still working its way through Congress. What's the point of predicting failure at this stage?

[stopbush]

27. They're not conclusions. They're projections. Big difference.

BTW - the point of predicting failure today is to avoid the failure tomorrow. There is still time to do something in addition to what has already been done. As an economist, Krugman is simply warning what will likely happen if the stim stands as it does now.

[ProSense]

29. "the point of predicting failure today is to avoid the failure tomorrow."

That makes no sense. The economy is in a crisis, discussing solutions constructively is needed, not predictions of failure based on bogus hypotheticals. Even if he wants to discuss worst-case scenarios, why not present them in a constructive way instead of predicting failure based on how he anticipates people will react (a complete unknown)? Why go beyond weighing the pros and cons when the administration is only in its seventh week?

[stopbush]

35. Why not ask Obama that question?

Much of the sales job he did to get the stim passed involved discussing hypothetical situations that could arise if the stim wasn't passed. Obama made plenty of predictions about what would happen if nothing was done, all of it based on realities on the ground and trends, just like Krugman is doing.

[ProSense]

48. "Much of the sales job he did to get the stim passed involved discussing hypothetical situations"

Did he predict people's feelings, and then use those hypothetical feelings to predict Congressional response?

[Honeycombe8]

51. Sounds like you misunderstood the article. He was projecting into the future, a hypothetical, if...

if more isn't done.

This is the sentence following the ones you quoted (the sentence you left out):

"O.K., that’s a warning, not a prediction. But economic policy is falling behind the curve, and there’s a real, growing danger that it will never catch up."

He's saying that we're behind the curve in our economic stimulus plan, that more needs to be done, and that if more isn't done, what COULD happen is .... (what you quoted in your original post).

[fishwax]

42. he's not predicting failure

he's not predicting future efforts won't get through congress, he's warning that in the future it might very well be more difficult to get such efforts through congress than it would be now, when the overwhelming majority of the public is behind both the administration and bold action.

[fasttense]

10. Krugman can get it very wrong sometimes.

Like the time he berated Greenspan for not lowering interest rates fast enough. Remember, Krugman won the same award that Milton Friedman got.

[FrenchieCat]

13. And his prize was work done on the topic world trade patterns

not the theory of what to do about the American economy politically when Banks go boom!

[karynnj]

18. Krugman and Friedman are polls apart though

Friedman and the University of Chicago's school of economics are pretty conservative.

[firedupdem]

14. He loves saying what President Obama should do without

acknowledging what he can't do because of the obstructionist party etc. Wasn't he offered an opportunity to come and help? He chose to stay on the sidelines throwing darts. He acts as if President Obama doesn't have economic advisers. He's not the only one in the world you know..

[karynnj]

15. He's not speaking NOW, it is part of the scenario that he started in the previous paragraph

"So here’s the picture that scares me: It’s September 2009, the unemployment rate has passed 9 percent, and despite the early round of stimulus spending it’s still headed up. Mr. Obama finally concedes that a bigger stimulus is needed.

But he can’t get his new plan through Congress because approval for his economic policies has plummeted, partly because his policies are seen to have failed, partly because job-creation policies are conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts. And as a result, the recession rages on, unchecked."

Over all the article says that he has the support now - He is concerned about the same thing that has concerned him for a long time - the slowness in dealing with the banks. It is an argument for a more aggressive plan for that. I think he might be right that people are conflating the bank bailouts with the stimulus package. To many people both are spending lots of money - and beyond that they really do not differentiate.

[ProSense]

20. I know he's not speaking now.

But he's talking stimulus which has wide Democratic support and his predictions are built on some strange hypotheticals.

This especially is confusing:

Also, an overwhelming majority believes that the government is spending too much to help large financial institutions. This suggests that the administration’s money-for-nothing financial policy will eventually deplete its political capital.

So here’s the picture that scares me: It’s September 2009, the unemployment rate has passed 9 percent, and despite the early round of stimulus spending it’s still headed up. Mr. Obama finally concedes that a bigger stimulus is needed.

Can someone show that people are becoming leary of stimulus spending?

Is he talking stimulus or TARP, which still has to pass.

[karynnj]

38. I think the spending that is unpopular that he is speaking of is the bank money -

both Tarp and what he will add to TARP (if anything).

I think what he is saying is that He then assumes that is true and he assumes that the current stimulus package is too small. This leads to the conclusion that when (really if) he wants an additional stimulus plan - he postulates this in September the political will to approve more money might not be there.

I think that there are 5 embedded assumptions here. All things he has previously argued.

1) The TARP plan in 2008 did not work
2) The current bank plan - not completely laid out yet, but sketched by Geitner is not likely to be the best option
3) People are unhappy with the way money was poured into the banks with no obvious good result.
4) The stimulus package is too small.
5) The bank solution, the housing solution, and the stimulus must all work to start moving the economy back to health

If you assume all of these, then it is possible that Obama would seek addition stimulus (because the original was too small). He is explicitly adding an additional assumption.

6) people will not differentiate between spending on banks and spending for stimulus.

That causes him to reach a conclusion that scares him - The economy not moving upwards and Obama not having the political capital to get more stimulus money.

Now if all the assumptions are true and the logic is reasonable and there are no important factors ignored, what would he want Obama to do about this? My take (which may be very far off) is that he wants Obama to do two things - add to the stimulus and work more aggressively on the bank problem.

Listening to clips on Morning Joe, a Republican, Lindsey Graham I think, was speaking of how he would support things for jobs in the upcoming budget - but not health care, cap and trade and education. I imagine that Krugman might be saying NOT to remove all these things as they all in their own way are stimulus. (It also made clear what is going on with the Republicans. They see us suddenly implementing our entire agenda. They have the sense of helpless we had under Bush as we saw everything we thought we'd accomplished over decades erased. Kennedy speaking on each amendment to soften the awful 2005 bankruptcy bill and all of them failing.)

I may have Krugman very wrong - but it is impossible to speak or think of the future in economics without implicitly making many many assumptions. Part of the problem may be that in a NYT column - you don't have room to list those assumptions that explain why you reached the conclusion you did.

[jonestonesusa]

45. Thanks for the summary - well done.

One legacy of living under Bush and other neocons for so long is that we regard individual people as heroes/villains and consequentially do not think enough about the policies themselves. This is why we get so many characterizations of Krugman as hero/villain, depending on who you ask, and an obsessive worry that every criticism of Obama's policies is an attack on Obama. This excessive personalizing of policy discussions doesn't help us. Instead of that, I hope that we have a genuine conversation about economic policy, one that certainly includes economists to the left of Obama's inclinations so far, some of whom have noted the high percentage of income tax cuts in the recent Reinvestment Act - and the relatively low percentage of infrastructure spending and aid to cities. This would include the case Krugman builds for a very large package of stimulus/infrastructure/industry bailouts, etc., and the case that Krugman makes for the urgency of putting that package together.

I would personally like to see us think in terms of microeconomies as well as larger economic institutions and structures, including using some of the stimulus/infrastructure money to invest in states and cities, some of which are having a spectacularly bad time, and all of which can make a $2 billion dollar investment (small by Washington terms) go a very long way. Obama seems very good at initiating those conversations with mayors/governors, and even with Congress, so I hope that the conversations are sustained and perhaps a lengthy economic summit is convened to look at the economic picture in regions and cities. I would like to hear more about the Obama team's contingency planning in case of an outright failure of one of the larger banks or one of the Detroit automakers. I think it's important to lay the groundwork for a major emergency investment in Michigan, for instance, if the Big Three do not stay afloat.

Maybe it's also time to dust off some of the anti-trust legislation for these institutions that are supposedly "too big to fail."

So, I think that as we get away from the shirts and skins mentality of the whole New Right era, we need to welcome criticism of the president that is thoughtfully given, as Krugman's generally is. We need to welcome attempts to diagnose and address the economic crisis, though I think we also need to disaggregate our thinking about the economy so we can tend better to individual sectors: finance, hard industries, international trade, and local economies.

[uberblonde]

31. He was speaking in a hypothetical sense..

That if things hadn't improved by September, Obama would have trouble getting an addition stimulus plan through Congress.

[YvonneCa]

32. My take on this is based on Krugman's book...

..."Depression Economics." In that book, he wrote about the causes of our current situation AND what he thinks is needed to get us out of it. He set out the economic theory about the Great Depression and other recessions and compared our current situation to them. He talked about the danger of not stopping the downward spiral (job loss, etc.). He wrote his premise before the inauguration, but was presenting his ideas for our new president...sort of as if he were giving advice.

He called for three things. One, the new president had to act rapidly and boldly. Second, he should pass a VERY large stimulus package immediately...VERY LARGE. And three, he should finish the New Deal and do healthcare reform right away. Obama is doing ALL these things.


THIS particular column seems like Krugman is playing doctor :) and taking the temperature of the patient (economy under Obama's care). He's a little worried that the temperature isn't going down fast enough (still in a job loss spiral). He's saying that more stimulus may be needed if the first proves not to be bold enough. In the book he says that that is the REAL danger...not to go large...because then the spiral won't be broken and there is a real danger of a worse recession or depression.

Since the inauguration, Krugman has continued to voice his opinion loudly. I think this may be to give Obama 'cover' to act boldly and get these large changes passed. I think this is good. I'm pretty sure he wants Obama to succeed.

[ProSense]

33. That's a good take.

Still, he had to resort to too many hypotheticals to come up with the scenario that scares him. This means that he hasn't given the plan sufficient time to work. As for the temperature, Krugman couldn't possibly believe he'd be seeing result this early. The thing that needs to happen is to get on with it: get the plans passed and implemented. I know he doesn't agree with all of Obama's approaches, but that's different from allowing enough time for a strategy to work.

[YvonneCa]

34. I agree with everything you said here. I actually think...

...Krugman's book was a more effective tool for explaining an economic plan than his columns are. His columns are relatively short, and he usually zeroes in on some small aspect and tries to 'nudge' the policy with his comments (I think). The foundation of his plan is missing...so the column seems a bit 'flighty.' :)

As to not giving the plan sufficient time, I agree...but I think Krugman pushes policy forward by speaking (even when it is harsh). My hope is that it helps Obama just to get on with it...and if you watch Obama, that seems to be EXACTLY what he is doing.

BTW, his book is really good. He does explain economics in a way that helps even a 'non-economist like me' to understand. :)

[karynnj]

39. Nice analysis - I need to get that book and read it

[YvonneCa]

41. Thanks, karynnj. It's a really good, but compact...

...analysis of where we are NOW. I'd also recommend "Conscience of a Liberal", if you haven't already read it. It's more in depth on the economics, but not very up-to-date. Both books helped me to understand a little more about what the country is dealing with. I am NOT very knowledgeable about 'things economic' :) ...but Krugman is very good at story-telling to explain difficult concepts.

:hi:

[wiggs]

43. Agree that this provides cover to act boldly...good point. Also...PObama is not

concerned with dissenting opinion. We forget that information is just information and that loyalty and obedience are not top priorities.

[Sparkly]

40. Way to take things out of context!!

"It's September 2009" -- a hypothetical -- vs. CURRENT poll numbers.

The polling you cite is one reason Krugman suggests pushing for a larger package now, rather than going back to it later.

Agree or disagree, but the attempts here to twist and dismiss the argument -- even the man -- are ridiculous.

[ProSense]

47. Out of context?

I asked what the basis was. Krugman himself reference the same poll cited in the OP. From his piece:

The broader public, by contrast, favors strong action. According to a recent Newsweek poll, a majority of voters supports the stimulus, and, more surprisingly, a plurality believes that additional spending will be necessary. But will that support still be there, say, six months from now?

How does Krugman come to these conclusions? Even if it's highly likely that Obama will have to go back to Congress for another round of stimulus, why is Krugman so certain that support for his policies will plummet leading to his inability to get his plan through Congress?

Predicting people's future response to scenarios that are currently hypothetical makes no sense. In order for the hypotheticals to be true, the responses have to play out that way, and there is nothing now that indicates that people will abandon Obama. In fact, most people believe this situation will drag out for at least two years, and Obama has repeatedly said that things will get worse before they get better.

The economy is in a crisis, discussing solutions constructively is needed, not predictions of failure based on bogus hypotheticals. Even if he wants to discuss worst-case scenarios, why not present them in a constructive way instead of predicting failure based on how he anticipates people will react (a complete unknown)? Why go beyond weighing the pros and cons when the administration is only in its seventh week?

[Vattel]

49. Krugman says right in the article that he isn't making a prediction.

He is presenting a possible future scenario that scares him. It is a possible scenario, and it is reasonable for him to be worried about it.

[ClarkUSA]

44. Krugman and Rush Limbaugh both want President Obama to fail.

[Jennicut]

46. I think Krugman basically has good ideas but no concept of politics

I think he writes based on how he feels the administration should deal with the economy but has no idea exactly how to get those type of ideas through congress. Or how to sell and explain those ideas to the public. That is why he is an economist and a writer and not a President, Senator or Congressman.