I received this text last evening from a friend; “your buddy Krugman is insane, keep destroying him”—I imagine he just read the Princeton professor’s latest NY Times Op-Ed. As much as I’d like to accommodate my friend, I kind of promised myself recently that I’d lay off Krugman for awhile. Frankly, it’s gotten rather boring. And I hate to be so condescending, but I find it pitiful that a Nobel laureate economist has reduced himself to the rank of the most predictable of partisan hacks. He makes your fanatical right-wing talk show host seem almost bipartisan. And besides, I’ve given the guy much too much attention on my blog—when I search “Krugman” twenty-one articles (all since November 2011) pop up.

So I’m going try to keep my promise to myself and take a bit of a hiatus from the good professor. That is after leaving you with this commonsensical excerpt from my upcoming daily devotional:

DAY 19: A Bloat of a Different Color

If I told you you’re spending 70 percent more than your annual income, you tell me: Will you be richer or poorer a year from now?

What if I told you you’re currently netting, on average, 250 calories per meal more than you’re burning off daily? You tell me: Would you be fatter or skinnier a year from now?

If you arrange your daily activities so as to net minimal physical stress, you tell me: Will your bones and muscles be more or less dense, and will they possess more or less capacity a year from now?

What would you say if I told you that you could lose weight by increasing your caloric intake by 70 percent daily? And what if I told you that you could become physically stronger while exerting even less over the next twelve months? As much as you’d love to believe me, you’d tell me I’m full of it.

But what if I were the recipient of the Nobel Prize in nutrition (were there such a thing)? Would you believe me then? Sadly, some of you (those who’d do just about anything not to diet or exercise) would. But alas, my academic prowess notwithstanding, my saying it wouldn’t amount to a hill-a-pork-n-beans twelve months from now.

Now what if I told you that you’re spending 70 percent more than your annual income? You tell me: Will you be richer or poorer a year from now? And what would you say if I told you that you’d be in better fiscal shape if you spent even more over the next twelve months? I’d be full of it, right?

But what if you were a company? Still full of it. Ah, but what if you were a nation? Now there’s a bloat of an entirely different color. For at least one Nobel Prize–winning economist, many other not-Nobel-laureate economists, and oodles of pandering politicians would have you believe that very thing. The question is, do you?