democrats should jettison their attempt to nationalize the health care system or do anything approaching it and that is where the president has put us on the wrong track on friday federal reserve chairman ben bernanke released a statement saying the economy is leveling off and that the prospects for growth are pretty good so is this a sign that the recession is now over krugman believes that its not completely over but is in somewhat of a resting place we have got a problem with terminology because we usually say either the economy is in recession or the economy is recovering he said either youre in hell or youre in heaven and the trouble is were actually in purgatory krugman added that the economy actually is in a situation where gdp is growing and he believes its likely that the business cycle dating committee will eventually decide that the recession ended this summer but he warned were still losing jobs reich disagreed that the economy is out of the woods just yet anyone who says that we are out of the woods or even moving into the woods has got to be lost at sea there is no evidence that this economy is doing much better the best that can be said is that we are getting worse more slowly reich said the new york times on sunday compared president barack obama with president lyndon johnson because of the two presidents attempts to aggressively tackle a domestic agenda while fighting a war abroad reich argued that the focus has been predominately on health care that americans are too concerned with issues at home i dont think the american people have focused on afghanistan at all reich said i mean health care and the economy dominate the agenda which is good for obama i mean he has some time because they havent focused others felt there was no parallel between the two that afghanistan is not what vietnam was this is not lbj krugman said this is not 500000 american troops who are drafted this is not your son your neighbors son being sent off to the war this is not every college student terrified about that letter arriving saying greetings from the president of the united states so although this could work out very badly im very nervous about it added krugman i dont think it has all that much political relevance