It used to be a “complex,” but the Bush administration has streamlined things a bit.

Taking a page from the book, “Momma Never Called It Socialism,” the administration’s making our economy a whole lot simpler than it’s been in years. Playing connect-the-dots is no great challenge when you’re served up only two gigantic dots:

First comes the gladsome news in American newspapers’ business sections: Halliburton’s KBR unit’s sales rose 80 percent this quarter, prompting a rise in its stock price and general happiness for Americas industrial sector. KBR, of course, is the unit that has pulled in $900 million in profits from Iraq. So far. And when we say “Iraq,” we mean “the U.S. government.”

Let’s couple that with some other news, this time from the world of global affairs: The Army Corps of Engineers is “raising the maximum value” of its Iraq oil industry repair contracts. And when we say “raising,” what we actually mean is “doubling.” Exactly. From $1 billion to $2 billion. Seeing as the initial billion has already gone to KBR, that’s basically another billion for whichever company wins the contract this fall. Who’s that gonna be? The Iraqi Oil Workers’ Collective isn’t going to be a frontrunner in the bidding, I’m guessing. I also wouldn’t lay any bets on Elf Aquitaine.

This is rotten news for satirists and economists alike: The story is so pathetically simple that you don’t need Adam Felber to show you why it’s funny. And you don’t need Paul Krugman to point our that funneling billions of dollars of deficit spending into a non-competitive military industrial complex is the same kind of sound economic policy that fueled the U.S.S.R.’s ultimate victory over the forces of capitalism in the 90’s when… oh, wait a minute…

The good news is that this means that I now have something in common with Paul Krugman, something beyond the fact that we both do some work at Princeton. Paul - call me. We’ll meet on the bread line and do lunch.