The separation of presidential politics from the troubles assailing the US economy is now verging on the surreal. With banks collapsing, the dollar reeling, the Federal Reserve making up new rules as it goes and observers discussing a new Great Depression, the presidential candidates are still on scripts they wrote a year ago. The main problem is either the North American Free Trade Agreement (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) or high taxes and excessive regulation (John McCain). If delivery from this ordeal depended on any of the contenders saying something intelligent about it, prudence would require that the entire country be written down to a nominal sum.