If the Pulitzer Committee handed out an award for “Most Regrettably Timed Op-Ed,” then Donald Luskin would be a shoo-in for this year; via Matthew Yglesias, we find that he wrote a piece, published Sunday, called “Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line” that endeavored to prove that, as John McCain would say, “the fundamentals of this economy are strong.”

That was, of course, the same day the Financial District exploded. Our very own Charlie Eisenhood, who knows a bit more about the subject, gave a brief rundown of the situation this morning.

Meanwhile, what the economists worth listening to are saying is far more unnerving. When Paul Krugman opens a column with this:

Will the U.S. financial system collapse today, or maybe over the next few days? I don’t think so — but I’m nowhere near certain.

that’s worth getting sort of freaked out over.

It’s pretty telling that while blowhards like Luskin feign absolute certainty as to what’s going to happen, the real experts like Krugman are admitting that they have their doubts. As Noah Millman says:

Right now, the Fed and the Treasury are focused on preventing the complete collapse of the financial system. They are fighting a four-alarm fire, and trying to keep the building from coming down. The renovation after the fire is going to take years. Anyone who confidently tells you they know what it’s going to look like once that process is done has been paying as little attention to the financial crisis as, say, Sarah Palin has been paying to foreign policy.

Sounds about right to me.

Photo by Flickr user Tony the Misfit used under a Creative Commons license.