As the rapidly dwindling fans of Keith Olbermann know, the MSNBC host likes to tar his enemies with the moniker “worst person in the world.” Rather than heaping this often humorless praise on deserving foes, Olbermann most often targets fairly harmless lesserknowns and obvious blowhards like Bill O’Reilly. In the gracious spirit of Olbermann’s mildly likeable shtick, Shout Bits hereby nominates a new worst person in the world: Paul Krugman.

Krugman is a Nobel Laureate, a professor at Princeton, a New York Times columnist, and an advocate for Keynesian spending and trade protectionism – in other words a socialist’s tweed clad dream. Krugman is among the hard left critics of Pres. Obama for not spending enough on stimulus and various social justice programs. A man for all seasons, Krugman advocates for higher taxes during good times to always grow the government. As Krugman’s tax and spend creeping socialism drains away US jobs, he advocates a new world order that would cripple trade and plunge the world back into a new Great Depression. His academic achievements are perhaps second only to Keynes in their assault on free markets and individual liberties. Finally, his nasal bleating voice is a crime in itself.

Still, Krugman is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the extreme left. He possesses only words as his tools to take down the US capitalist system. How can a person whose only ally is the First Amendment be ‘the worst person in the world?’ To paraphrase Stalin, how many armies does Krugman have? Krugman was powerless, until this week when Donald Kohn announced his retirement from the Fed.

Left wing ideologues quickly rallied behind Krugman to replace Kohn as Fed Vice Chairman, much as they did when Ben Bernanke’s renewal was in jeopardy. Suddenly, Krugman may get his army. Anyone concerned about the US’s national debt, inflation, or free trade should work to quash this idea before it grows legs.

As Shout Bits argued last week, Obama is exacerbating an already dangerous problem with his extreme wasteful spending binge. The only way Obama can hope to pay for his libertine excesses is through surprise inflation – which will transfer wealth from savers to borrowers like the US Treasury. Unfortunately, the Fed has long stood in the way of inflationary policies. Ever since the monetary policies of the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations nearly ruined the nation, the Fed’s first priority has been to restrain money supply growth and contain inflation.

The “spread the wealth” President would no doubt like some room to operate and inflation is a stealthy way to steal from the responsible and give to the debtors. Enter Krugman, who’s every policy is inflationary. Krugman supports deficit spending (inflationary), loose monetary policies (inflationary), and in good times, tax increases (long term inflationary by growing government faster than the economy) – consanguinity indeed for a President who wants to reshape the economy.

With the retirement of Kohn, Obama may now appoint three of the seven Fed members. While Krugman may be an extreme example of leftist fiscal and monetary policies, there are many lefties with PhDs in economics. Freedom loving Americans should demand deficit hawks on the Fed, not the socialists with whom Obama normally rubs shoulders. Monetary policy is at the heart of US economic strength, and there is good cause to worry that Obama does not know the lessons of Carter era inflation.