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Jim (cont'd):  

But Krogman is not alone.  Two more Nobel winners, Joseph Steigler... Edward Prescott...  They're saying it looks like we're going to have a "lost decade"... just like like Japan's... never mind how different our situation is from where Japan was in the 90s... differences we have explained in great detail on this show...

These guys just have to pour on the negativity...

Oh, and let's not forget the two Nobel winners behind a long-term capital fiasco... Maybe the prize comes with some kind of curious string attached, where you have to try to do as much damage to the markets as possible or they take the award away...

Whatever the reason, I say, enough Nobels!... The Swedish should stop handing them out for Economics, before you have no money left in your 401(k), IRA or 529 plans...

And the damage doesn't stop with the Nobel winners... Lately, it seems like everyone with a Ph.D. in Economics is doing more harm than good...

Please! I say leave the patient alone! Maybe we should stop listening to all these Ph.D.s, stop spilling so much ink, and stop devoting so much air time to their bearish pronouncements... I mean it. Enough! Enough with the free pass...

Think about this...

Why do we now like (Treasury Secretary) Tim Geithner?... He's showing the banks' forbearance... because he's got no Ph.D. When did Bernanke get with the program? When he stopped acting like an academic...

Maybe we don't want any Ph.D.s to diagnose what's wrong with the economy... What if we need a different kind of "doctor" entirely?...

How about a doctor that knows how to handle life and death emergencies?... Someone who can operate in an atmosphere of total uncertainty... who knows that the best way to diagnose a problem is by treating it...

That's right... we don't need Dr. Krogman... we don't need Dr. Steigler... We need Dr. House! Even from the mental hospital, he's better than these credentialed jokers... And notice... out of my desire to be a statesman, I didn't call them charlatans...

Maybe we're Patient A, whose back to competing in ultraman triathlons, against Navy Seals and ninjas...

Maybe we're Patient B, who needs a dozen external and internal organ transplants...

The Ph.D.s we're constantly hearing from are all certain about their negative diagnosis... oh, no wavering there... and they're equally pessimistic about our ability to treat it...

Their endless negative pronouncements and their awful bedside manner are doing a real number on the patient's confidence... Confidence is the one thing we can all agree we need to get better. Good thing Obama gets it...

When he picked Geithner for Treasury (Secretary), he was doing the economic equivalent of hiring Dr. Cutner... And, as an aside, the actor who played Cutner (on the TV show, House), Cal Penn, actually did join the Obama team... which is really why he off'ed himself...

I just hope that Dr. House and the rest of the team of real crisis doctors - not the Ph.D. kind - are Obama's next hires... because the Ph.D.s are only making things worse. Someone please tell them you don't need to dynamite the economy, just because you received a prize started by the guy who invented dynamite.

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The Bottom Line!:     We want the economy to survive... maybe even thrive... but these professors and Nobel winners?... They just want it to take a dive.