By Jim Woods

We know that conservatives, libertarians, most Republicans and Austrian School economists are at odds with President Obama’s economic policies. Count me in with this camp, as I think the country is headed in the direction of too much government and not enough liberty in the realm of economic activity (among other realms). Now, however, the president is being called out by prominent members of the left-wing intelligentsia for being on the wrong track.

Two recent New York Times op-ed columns illustrate this disaffection on the left. First, there was Nobel Prize-winning economist and Keynesian arrowhead Paul Krugman, who wrote a June 27 op-ed, titled “The Third Depression.” The Krugman piece makes the following statement:

“We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It probably will look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost -- to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs -- will nonetheless be immense.

“And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world -- most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting -- governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.”

So, from Krugman’s point of view, the only way to extricate the world from the pernicious effects of too much government spending and runaway debt is to saddle the world with more government spending and more debt.

The other critical op-ed came just one day later, June 28, from liberal commentator Bob Herbert. His piece, titled “Wrong Track Distress,” calls the president out for not seizing upon the opportunity of his election and offering a more sweeping government scheme to create jobs. Here’s the money quote from the Herbert op-ed:

“It’s not too late for the president to turn things around, but there is no indication that he has any plan or strategy for doing it. And the political environment right now, with confidence in the administration waning and budgetary fears unnecessarily heightened by the deficit hawks, is not good.

“It would take an extraordinary exercise in leadership to rally the country behind a full-bore jobs-creation campaign -- nothing short of large-scale nation-building on the home front. Maybe that’s impossible in the current environment. But that’s what the country needs.”

Once again, we see the president taking fire from the left for not doing enough to create jobs and for a failure to undergo “large-scale nation-building on the home front."

Hey, you know things are bad for you when high-profile liberals like Krugman and Herbert jump ship. And while I think the analysis and solutions to our economic problems proffered by Krugman and Herbert are much worse than those offered by the president, I admit it’s nice to see that conservatives, libertarians and Austrian School economic thinkers aren’t the only ones who know that the president’s solutions are ineffectual.

Jim Woods is a freelance journalist specializing in economics and politics. He is a frequent contributor to Doug Fabian’s Alert, as well as many other publications. He celebrates the virtue of making money from his home on the California coast.