Just caught this in my early morning browsing. Paul Krugman and Richard Layard have prepared a Manifesto of Economic Sense and have circulated it to a bunch of economists already. Click on the link to read it -- it pretty much summarizes everything Krugman has been writing about these last four years: austerity is no way out of the economic crisis. But they're asking economists to sign on and so far several dozen have done so. Richard Layard is a heavyweight economist in England, based at the London School of Economics, where he founded the Center on Economic Performance, and currently writes on happiness(!). Oh, and he's also a member of the House of Lords. This is a big deal in economic academic circles. Not that 5 million signatures will help change the mind of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, but it sort of crystallizes what's gone wrong with the world economies in one concise spot. And it asks economists to sign on.