Some of the most famous leftists are in fact insane. Krugman is beginning to exhibit a pattern of direct self-contradiction of very deliberate and well-thought-out convictions. Recall his table pounding earlier this year for virtually unlimited extensions of unemployment benefits, with no acknowledgement whatsoever that this was in absolutely complete opposition to what he wrote in his economic textbook not many years before.
It seems that they sense their era would be ending if this crisis runs its course.This is the symptom of outright panic.