Krugman is gloomy because he thinks the Geithner plan will fail. I'm gloomy because of how it may succeed or fail.

Previously I had been concerned that Obama's combined plans offer ordinary Americans only increased national and personal debt, increased demands of productivity and increased competition. Elites get cash, and massive, taxpayer funded, federal support for large monolithic corporate entities.

Instead, I argued for capitalizing citizens. Like Leonard argued previously, I see Americans saving as abysmally low and their debt obligations very high. Unlike Leonard and Krugman, I find nationalization a tiger-by-the-tail problem, and the AIG situation illustrates the problem. Even Sweden is not much interested in the Swedish solution in today's global market structure. (A warning sign in Krugman's column is his insistence that this crisis is like all previous crises.) Instead, I would have had the Feds use the trillions to create alternative institutions to existing corporate entities, and let those corporations sink under the weight of their toxic liabilities or survive by attracting new capital from citizens. The government could play a role in restructuring those entities for the public good, particularly in splitting them up.

Now comes the Geithner toxic asset plan directly on the heels of the interest-lowering Federal buyup of bonds. Obama FORCES citizens to acquire liability for the toxic liabilities. No, that's not it, it's worse. He FORCES citizens to give loans to private entities at bargain basement rates. Without any capitalization in their own lives, citizens are now supplying credit to worse kind of speculators.

Let's say a stranger came up to you and demanded that you borrow against the value of your home, your car, your retirement, and your children's future income. The stranger then tells you that he plans to invest in a risky scheme that the market has already rejected. He demands the money you've borrowed for this scheme. He points to a SWAT team that has you surrounded and is on his side. You stammer out that you'd at least like a high rate of interest to cover your risk, and he says, no. He gets to determine the rate, and guess what, it will be a low rate. You hand over your money.

Krugman, you think you've got reason to be depressed and sing Mama Mia Here We Go Again? Pull up a barstool and let me sing Fernando in your ear.

I promise, Sniffy, that my plan would be more Love Boat than Love Canal.

The Love Boat, promises something for everyone...

Let it flow, it floats back to you!

Or, as an old farmer told me in a slightly different metaphor: Money is like manure, you've got to spread it around for it to do any good.

In other words, manure, like money, is toxic when concentrated.

Good Witch Glinda gave Dorothy the slippers right after the Munchkinland housing collapse, but didn't tell Dorothy how to use them until just after the Wizard's balloon had accidently sailed away in the final scene. Turns out that Dorothy could have gone home at any point, and that Glinda was a bit of a rhymes-with-witch.

Obama is having his own moment watching his wizards' balloons sail away. His advisors misled him on how to spend the trillions to solve the economic crisis. Guess what--if you want to break up capital concentrations, you don't give money to those who already have it. Guess what--if you want consumers to spend, the fastest way is to give them money.

Guess what--money actually trickles up. Guess what--Geithner is a humbug.

Meanwhile, Wen Jiabao at least is getting nervous about the growing tide of American populism. He thinks it's time for the global elites to get their own currency to replace the dollar. A "super sovereign reserve currency" doncha know.

I didn't really see a "cool" Obama. I thought his "smackdown" answer was a Special Olympics moment--a vicarious putdown of the more effective Cuomo and an admission of confusion. Off go his wizards in their bailout balloons, and Obama is left here on the ground with us Munchkins. Not what he planned on, exactly. Cool? How about "nonplussed."

Unlike Dorothy, who still wore her impractical and oddly unscuffed red slippers to the end, Obama's trillions are spent. Some dollars spent worthily, but, as Obama is realizing now, too few dollars targeted in a fashion to bring the nation home. What now?

I imagine China would spot him a super sovereign reserve currency account and a pack of hongtashens.

And with it, any serious attempt to deal with global warming for at least four, and most likely eight years. Also ends the best chance for compensate the less than wealthy for conservation.

I thought that was newsworthy. So much for "cool."

I think average Americans are more like the villagers charged the triple-tribute in Lagaan, though we are sorely in need of an Amir Khan to deliver an impassioned speech to get us off our fat asses. Hmmm, Paul Blackthorne as Obama!

But maybe the ten-minute wave of populism that swept over America boils down to that kid throwing the rock at the end of Shyam Benegal's Ankhur. That's not Bollywood, but it does star Shabana, who out-pussycats any Pussycat Doll by a ratio of one lakh to ek.