Economy's Tanking Too Fast to Wait for Obama: Krugman

The state of the economy right now reminds Paul Krugman a lot of the start of the Great Depression, including a lame-duck administration that seems to have no credibility, hence no influence on the markets, the columnist writes in the New York Times. Drastic damage was done to the country in the months of paralysis between the election and the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt, and Krugman sees the same thing happening now.

In 1932, "the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority, and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action." Similarly, two months of policy drift now could be devastating to hundreds of thousands of Americans who will lose their homes and their jobs, and worries are mounting that we could face an irreversible, lost-decade-style deflation.
(More economic downturn stories.)