Economists tell tales.

The best are those that make it easier for us to understand very complicated ideas. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate, wrote one such tale years ago, an essay called “Ricardo’s Difficult Idea.” It explains something economist David Ricardo discovered nearly 200 years ago: When nations trade they both become better off even when some people seem to suffer.

Since that essay Krugman has been telling tales for the New York Times. Not all have been as wholesome.

Krugman appears to be one of those court wizard economists who believe they — that is, the government — can fine-tune the economy. In his August 2, 2002 column he says that “[t]o fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that . . . Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.”

Yes, back in 2002 Krugman supported the Fed’s super-low interest rates, and predicted the outcome: A housing bubble.

Which has burst.

Since then, Krugman’s readers have looked for someone to blame. Well, Krugman’s own words give us all we need to incriminate his own very self . . . and his fellow court wizards.

Familiar story: Self-aggrandizing experts aim to fix things, and put us all in a fix. The case against government management of the economy just got even stronger.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It’s a laugh a minute on Capitol Hill, where folks who supposedly represent us fritter away our freedom with giddy abandon. And without a glance at the fine print.

Well, it’s all fine print when you’ve got a cap-and-trade bill 900-plus pages long. This bill would tax businesses that need to produce more “greenhouse gases” than the new law would allow according to a formula so congested that, well, it takes 932 pages to spell it out. If the bill passes, it’s another punch to the gut of the American economy.

For a while, it seemed that Republicans on the energy committee might obstruct things, might insist that the bill be read. Aloud!

So the Democrats hired a speed reader. No reading was ever demanded. But since the guy had been hired, he was asked to zip through just a bit of the bill. His incredible machine-gun delivery cracked everybody up.

Well, DownsizeDC.org isn’t laughing. The activist group notes that the cap-capitalism bill was rushed through committee so fast that it could not possibly have been read, publicly or privately.

The group supports a Read the Bills Act to require every bill to be read in full before the House and Senate . . . and require all lawmakers to sign an affidavit affirming that they have read any bill they vote on. A sensible rule, long overdue. Seriously.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

If the government isn’t trying to take something from you, it’s trying to push something on you. Or both.

Marion Smith is a 79-year-old widow living in Brooklyn. Ecologically pious bureaucrats are trying to stick her with a tree she doesn’t want. A friend, Nancy Cardozo, reports that they were even threatened with arrest for daring to object to the project.

Marion is disabled, and cannot rake leaves. Six years ago, a tree that had been in the same spot died, not long after her husband died. Years later, the city removed the stump, and a city worker assured Marion that no new tree would be planted there. So she paved the area.

The city worker who now came to plant a new tree proved inert to any appeals. “Sorry, I have the contract and I have a big payroll,” he told Marion and a neighbor trying to help her out. He had to put the tree there.

The city insists that it has a right to put the tree anywhere it wants on the sidewalk, since it owns the sidewalk. The city also says that if anybody slips on the leaves in front of Marion’s home, she as homeowner will be liable.

Maybe somebody could plant an idea about common sense and common decency in the minds of all concerned?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The good sense that California voters exhibited at the polls in May has been rewarded with continual attack and derision.

Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and Republican candidate for governor, recently said, “In many ways, the proposition process has worn out its usefulness.”

She’s criticizing the initiative, and she’s not alone.

Wrong target. California’s initiative process account for what little political sanity exists in the state.

The problem is spendaholic politicians.

But politicians and pundits continue bashing California’s ballot initiative process. Anything to deflect attention away from the inability of politicians to prioritize.

Even The Economist has taken up the bludgeon. A recent story, headlined “The ungovernable state,” said of the voter initiative process:

At first, it made sense . . . . The state in 1910 had only 2.4 million residents, and 95 percent of them were white. (Today it has about 37 million residents, and less than half are white.) A small, homogenous and informed electorate was to make sparing and disciplined use of the ballot to keep the legislature honest, rather as in Switzerland.

Is The Economist actually suggesting that a multi-ethnic electorate is incapable of democratic decision-making? I think we are witnessing the insider class move from condescending disdain for the people to a full-blown case of dementia.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Does cinematic celebrity protect a person against arbitrary governmental stomping, or bulldozing, of one’s human rights to property?

Maybe it does if you live in Beverly Hills. But the answer’s a big No if you dwell in a Mumbai slum targeted by a government touting a sanctimonious “cleanup” agenda. Why? Because callously uprooting lives is part of the allegedly “acceptable” cost of that “cleanup.”

Mumbai officials have destroyed yet another shanty home of a child who starred in the popular and multiple-Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” The victims are the family of Rubina Ali, who played Latika in the film. Rubina says, “I’m feeling bad. I’m thinking about where to sleep.”

Her family had not even been given any notice when cops swooped in to supervise the demolition. The week before, the home of Azhar Mohammed Ismail, who played Jamal as a child in the movie, had also been flattened. Rubina and Azhar lived in the same part of Mumbai.

One would think that fame might have helped these kids catch a break from functionaries eager to forcibly reorder the world no matter what damage is done to innocent victims in the process; perhaps they might be sensitive to the bad publicity. No such luck.

Not that whether your rights are respected should have anything to do with whether you’re a movie star. Being a human being should be enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.