Maybe this Caroline should have been appointed to the Senate. Unlike the other Caroline, she could add some value (and move the sum of economic knowledge in the Senate a tick above zero).

These are short-sighted, short-term solutions being orchestrated at the expense of the economy’s long-term health, and I suspect most economists know it. (Politicians are a different story. Their knowledge of economics is generally confined to the area of trade: providing favors in return for campaign contributions.)

President Barack Obama’s crack economics team, including Larry Summers and Christina Romer, and Fed officials from Ben Bernanke on down have to understand that the problem of too much leverage can’t be fixed with more borrowing; that a misallocation of capital to housing can’t be cured with incentives to buy more homes; that consumers (and the nation) can’t spend their way to prosperity.

At least I hope they do.

Well they don’t. They believe in a paradigm that is fundamentally broken; and besides, it allows them to spend with complete abandon. For a while, it will be raining money. Spread out your TARP and catch your share.