In which we take a metaphor about boiling frogs and stretch it. Or, at least, throw in a lobster.

So I saw this headline on Memeorandum and thought: wow, I’m agreeing with Paul Krugman! But of course I wasn’t.

The headline: Boiling the Frog

Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog?

I’m referring, of course, to the proverbial frog that, placed in a pot of cold water that is gradually heated, never realizes the danger it’s in and is boiled alive. Real frogs will, in fact, jump out of the pot — but never mind. The hypothetical boiled frog is a useful metaphor for a very real problem: the difficulty of responding to disasters that creep up on you a bit at a time.

Hey, I’m hip, what with the deficit and the creeping incrementalism of government dependency and all the expenses – Medicaid, Social Security, etc. – that go along with it. The incrementalism of government authority in our lives. We gotta get out of here before the water starts to bubble!

Oh, wait, it already has.

But he’s not talking about that. He’s talking about a “jobless recovery” that will take place unless we “get another round of fiscal stimulus under way very soon.”

Which seems kind of stupid. Doesn’t it? The “boiling frog” metaphor ends with the frog dead – an irreversible outcome. Recession – even depression – isn’t irreversible.

Plus, to pile another “stimulus” on top of the trillion-dollar “stimulus” that we haven’t even finished spending yet…I’m not a professional economist, nor do I write for the New York Times, but isn’t that a really stupid thing to do? Kind of like the frog jumping from one pot into another, bigger pot, wherein live lobster are about to boil?

Krugman then leaps to global warming/climate change, which at least works from the metaphorical standpoint, even if Krugman is doing exactly what he’s accusing others of doing: ignoring facts and arguments that don’t support his conclusion.