Paul Krugman writes in his column today about "the magazine cover curse." Funny he should mention it!

Krugman leads with a Time cover from ten years ago featuring Most Loathsome Financial Villain runner-up Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Lawrence Summers with a headline labeling the trio "the committee to save the world" from a then-impending global financial crisis.

How times have changed.

Never mind the fact that two members of the committee have since succumbed to the magazine cover curse, the plunge in reputation that so often follows lionization in the media. (Mr. Summers, now the head of the National Economic Council, is still going strong.) Far more important is the extent to which our claims of financial soundness - claims often invoked as we lectured other countries on the need to change their ways - have proved hollow.

Indeed, these days America is looking like the Bernie Madoff of economies: for many years it was held in respect, even awe, but it turns out to have been a fraud all along.

That was a Time cover. Newsweek covers, like the current one, picture aboved, are totally different.