At first, Krugman ramped up his lending to the sharks. This seemed to help for a while, though the price of fish was stubbornly staying low especially as the last of the new boats were just put into the water. However, distressingly, Krugman’s barrel of cash was now practically empty.
Something would need to be done to stop the fishermen from fishing so much. He suggested implementing ‘voluntary contributions’ from the sharks and any islanders that could afford it. With this money they would pay the boat owners to not fish. Only the boat owners liked the idea.
He suggested they try some things that were tried in our Great Depression. First, as the issue seemed to be mainly the low price of fish, they would need to take as much fish off the market as possible. This meant actually using the ‘contributions’ to buy and then destroy fish before they could be sold. This seemed offensive and stupid to the islanders, but they tried it for a little while. It had very little effect.
In addition, he suggested using the ‘contributions’ to supplement the unemployed’s income so they could spend the money and bolster demand. What would they do, he was asked. The islanders were too proud to just accept charity. He told them it did not matter. For all he cared, they could dig holes in the beach and then fill them in. While a few of the more slower witted islanders thought this idea had merit, most were convinced that the pale man with the gray beard was out of his mind.
With the barrel of stimulus now entirely exhausted, the developing bad situation got worse. Nearly every family on the island had someone out of work.
Krugman, once a hero, was now not welcome anywhere in the village. He took solace in the fact that the islander’s problems were their own fault. They would not listen to him and refused to force the wealthy among them to spend their “horded” cash. Now they would get what was coming to them, he thought as he walked down the beach away from the boats now sitting idle by the water.
Krugman was never a man to quit. He went to the shark meetings and tried to explain the modern economy to the people. He went into detail about fractional reserve banking. If they understood, they were not fans. Most of the islanders did not appreciate being called ‘simpletons’, as he had done in his most recent column.
What had been a cooling of his relationship with the islanders, went into deep freeze. Desperate to save his reputation, and running out of ideas, Krugman started his speech at the most recent meeting: ‘Have you ever heard of World War 2?’
After explaining his idea for starting a war with the neighboring island, the islanders, to a man, now thought Krugman had to go.
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