What to do, what to do...

Well, the economy is heading south, and we are running out of ways to deal with it. But I'll tell you what that is.

First off, consumer spending is in the ditch. It looks really bad, and the holidays will make it look worse. We won't spend our way out of this one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/opinion/31krugman.html?em

Another good stimulant, even better than caffeine, is cutting interest rates. But interest rates just got cut to 1%, so they can't go much lower.

What's left? Government spending. Whether we like it or not, we need more deficit spending in the short term in order to get things moving. We need to go up from the paltry numbers Obama and McCain have used so far. We need the government to spend Defense Department type money, $400Billion or more, next year, on renewable energy and infrastructure projects.

This seemed like a no-brainer to me before, a win-win, moving our economy into the 21st century and stimulating it in the short term. But now it's absolutely essential. Both candidates have to spend more than they are already planning on spending, which means a $1 trillion dollar increase in our debt, in one year. That is a 10% jump in total debt. In one year.

May you live in interesting times!