...an enfeebled economy for years to come

Today, Obama is following a script eerily similar to the one followed by Hoover and FDR: He wants to spend wildly, raise taxes on all Americans, erect trade barriers and protect unions, his biggest supporters, to boost their wages at others' expense.

The only difference this time is the Fed has refused to let the money supply contract by a third, as it did during the Depression, deepening the economy's collapse.

The hole in which we find ourselves is the result of bad policy responses to a short-term financial crisis. We'll pay for it with an enfeebled economy for years to come.

And if, as Krugman believes, we are about to enter a global depression, it's only because our policymakers were foolish enough to take his advice.

Paul Krugman's Depression