Explain the disease to help US citizens

[admin]

The funny thing is, Art, I think that the Bush/Paulsen/Bernanke response to the crisis was actually pretty good. One can argue about details, but they didn't really had much time to think about it as the event was really quite unprecedented. Apart perhaps from the auto bailout, Obama's response was a continuum of that, not really a departure. We probably would have gotten some sort of stimulus even if McCain would have won.

Two things upset me though:
- Why is the above never really explained? Obama really has done a lousy job with that
- The much derided stimus hasn't been the failure folklore has it. Not only is it about the only thing you can do under these circumstances (see Koo's article above), and even (belatedly) the fiscally very conservative IMF now argues fiscal policy is much more effective under these circumstances than previously thought, there is a great deal of research showing its effectiveness:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/busine....html?_r=0
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/13/think_again_obamas_new_deal?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full
http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-24/ne...stment-act
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinio....html?_r=1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra...-is-wrong/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/f...print.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/amb...technical/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...s-stimulus
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/fact-16a7b...-deficits/
http://www.cnbc.com/id/47205997