George Will is a lightweight, always has been; and its a mark of how bad our discourse has been for quite a while that he is considered a deep-thinker.

One of the frustrating experiences of the Bush years was how the media handled "experts". Whenever a moderate or leftist got on a panel, the producers always guaranteed a tag team against them. Two to one, Three to one panels where the solitary voice of sanity got shouted over.

They couldn't handle one on one and they knew it.

In my opinion, GM is not viable. It is misleading to say that letting them fail would risk mortal damage to our economy. The damage is already done, by managerial incompetence and self-complacency. Rewarding the same fools will GUARANTEE mortal damage to our economy.

Likewise with Wall Street.

This is why you won't see Will with Krugman anymore. He didn't like being torn up like that.

Yes, Krugman was much more informed, accurate and convincing, but Will is tapping into doubts that a lot of people believe right now: that bailing out a specific industry that has been failing for some time is a bad first step and will lead to a long line of similar requests - probably with airlines next. It's going to be the same thing with the states - probably with California first in line.

You can convince the public that those mysterious *financial* institutions have to be helped in a *financial* crisis ..... but that argument hits the skids with everyday folks when you start applying that reasoning to something they can more readily envision, like a specific manufacturer or service provider or local government.

We've just been told, for a couple of years actually, that we should act on our hopes and grand plans, not our fears. And we've been convinced enough to vote in that direction .... but the **only** argument that I've heard in support of an auto bailout is "it will be too terrible and horrible if we don't do it!" See the problem?

There is also the problem of rewarding those who were at the helm during decades of bad decision-making. I think the American people would buy any sort of bailout if there was a fixed rule that the top __% of the industry (CEOs, etc.) were immediately fired and on the street with no parachute. If nothing else, it would probably shorten the lines that are waiting, encourage some other solution that the bosses just hadn't thought of until now. I know - it's not workable (who would be in charge then??), but everyday people are having a lot of difficulty accepting this, however logical and reasonable Krugman's explanation may be.

I really wish people would stop using the Nobel Prize as "proof" about anything on Krugman: Milton Friedman won it as well.

There's a reason why economics isn't considered a science. That's why you have various "schools" of thought in economics -- but you don't have a "Newton school" vs. and "Einstein school".

There are non-ideological reasons to let the auto manufacturers fail, they need to stop their present type of car-making path.

What we need from the Big 3 is: (a) heavy manufacturing capacity and (b) a redirection away from personal transport and more toward public transport (and public infrastructure).

The real issue here is that the auto manufacturers can't afford the massive payouts for pensions anymore -- and even zeroing out all executive compensation won't balance the financial sheet. Take this as a sign of what happens when Social Security hits of the skids.

"We're still poised on the edge of an economic precipice, and the loss of GM, along with its 1 million-plus jobs, would risk mortal damage to the economy. Too big a risk to take now."

Scare tactic bullshit.

I'm not defending Will, btw. I'm saying that all this extremist talk is crap, and antithetical to development of pragmatic solutions, except in the ironic sense that the school of hard knocks teaches good sense if you have the good sense to learn from the hard knocks and the bad sense to take them in the first place when you don't have to.

What I like about Obama is how he talks the talk of a middle road of pragmatism and heuristics.