I’ve complained a lot about the “fiscalization” of economic discourse here in America, the way in which a premature focus on budget deficits turned Washington’s attention away from the ongoing jobs disaster. But we’re not unique in that respect, and in fact the Europeans have been much, much worse.

It's true the United States is not unique in the outrageously boneheaded economic policies that have been adopted. However it is unique in that the United States has more freedom of action, a freedom it must take advantage of. Krugman writes of Trichet's self inflicted predicament:

What Mr. Trichet and his colleagues should be doing right now is buying up Spanish and Italian debt — that is, doing what these countries would be doing for themselves if they still had their own currencies. In fact, the E.C.B. started doing just that a few weeks ago, and produced a temporary respite for those nations. But the E.C.B. immediately found itself under severe pressure from the moralizers, who hate the idea of letting countries off the hook for their alleged fiscal sins. And the perception that the moralizers will block any further rescue actions has set off a renewed market panic.

(Emphasis supplied.) Whatever the failings of the ECB, if its interventions have been rendered impotent, then there seems little for it to do. Things are different for the US. Standard and Poor's attempted to play the Great Fiscal Scold when downrating US sovereign debt and of course US debt is now at historic lows. This is not a direct reaction to S&P's silliness, but it does demonstrate that the United States has a freedom of action on economic policy that much of the rest of the world does not.

The United States is exceptional in the world, and in many respects, the world awaits the United States to wake up on economic policy. The perverse drive for austerity that the "Impeccable Elites" wish to impose must be defeated. Perhaps not by frontal assault, but it must be defeated nonetheless.

If not, a second Lost Decade, again due to the "Impeccable Elites", will be unavoidable.