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Recently I read about an eminent economist, Paul Krugman, who condemns the Obama administration’s plan to assist our ailing economy. He complains that our entire system of banking and investments is fatally flawed. Krugman’s statements got my attention. Trouble is that as brilliant as he claims to be, he does not offer a good solution either. He appears to be a doom sayer.

What is it about economists that often make them so sure of themselves – even when they disagree with other noted economists? Maybe it is the “science” of economics itself. To me, economics is rather like history. You can study the past and learn trends. However predicting the future based upon the past is usually tricky.

Economics depends upon the behavior of large numbers of people. People are affected by emotions, so when they are afraid, they panic. And, of course, people’s fears are different. In other words there are too many variable factors for good prediction. Despite all that I have found seven economist, all with impressive credentials, that disagree about how to fix our economy. And, if that weren’t enough, their statements are usually filled with technical terms that most of us can not understand.

So, I intend to reword economists to help us understand. Krugman is the first of several.

Krugman says that the government must guarantee the liabilities of all the nation’s banks and “nationalize” the big “zombie” banks and do it fast.

I think Krugman is really saying that “we the people” need to put the banks on welfare. It is not the huge banks fault that they made bad loans to people who could not afford the payments. It is our fault for trusting the banks. So we just take them over and make the banks part of the government. Interesting idea. I just want to know which bank is mine.