He's a gloom-monger, but what strikes me in this interview is that his main worry about the stimulus package is that it combines short-term demand-goosing with long-term infrastructure spending and that it's not big enough. I don't see why doing stimulus and infrastructure at once is such a bad thing. But the more I read, the more one fears that the package isn't big enough to arrest the free-fall in demand. But $500 billion is still a lot. If the two risks are a) recklessly pumping more debt into an already debt-ridden economy and b) not doing enough to rescue demand, then the package seems like a not-crazy compromise.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/02/martin-wolf-vents/205861/
