In that sense, there could
>be a kind of perverse rightness to Krugman's suggestion to start the
>printing presses--although the owners of all that debt in the Japanese
>bourgeoisie wouldn't like it, since it would make all those bad loans even
>cheaper for American banks.
Christian, this implicit claim that only rich millionaire bankers are the viticms of easy money is not only an atavastic remnant but insidious. Under capitalism the typical debtors are not simply the poor but the well to do owners of real estate, of firms, and of common stock, people who have borrowed from banks, savings banks, insurance companies, and bondholders. The typical creditors are not rich but people who have taken out insurance policies and (in Japan) made deposits in savings banks. If the common person supports anti creditor measures, she does it because she ignores the fact she herself is a creditor. And indeed in Japan the common person has serious fear of such anti creditor measures, blithely ignored by you and Krugman.
yrs, rakesh