I don't want to be the jerk who makes a pessimistic prediction and then gloats when it comes true, so I'll just give you a link and not say anything more about it.

I don't get into all the "leading and lagging indicators," consumer sentiment, and all that jazz. All I know is that if the Fed sets the price of short-term borrowing to just about zero, and the feds take over the financial sector, and the government takes $1.5 trillion out of the private capital markets, etc. etc., that the economy is going to be awful for a long time.

The really annoying thing is that a year from now, if and when unemployment is still above 8% and consumer spending "is surprisingly sluggish," it's not as if Krugman et al. are going to say, "Whoa, we were wrong! I guess half-socialism gives you an economy half as robust as the Soviet Union's!"