Imaginary Problems Call for Painful Solutions

[Editor’s Note: We’d like to give a warm, wet, PBH welcome to our newest contributor, Chet Hardrock. Chet is an unemployed feline tax-consultant who enjoys vintage daytime television and spouting drunken conspiracy-theories involving the CIA, the John Birch Society, Martha Stewart, and an undead Wayne Newton. He will be joining PBH as a statistical analyst/political pundit/sports hobo.]

Democrats and Republicans have struck on a rare point of consensus; despite a 9% unemployment rate and anemic GDP growth, the potential threat of higher interest rates on US government bonds makes additional stimulus impossible. A survey of leading economic policymakers reveals some of the other hypothetical situations that prevent them from supporting more recovery measures.