Originally Posted by pocketkangaroo

I look at it this way. A lot of intelligent and well respected economists believe the stimulus is necessary. Many more than those that believe we don't need one. Since I'm not an economist, nor an expert on this kind of stuff, I tend to believe it's best to side with what the experts think.

Sure they could be completely wrong, and sure it could implode in our faces. But in the end, isn't it smarter to take the opinions of the people who have studied and researched this stuff their entire lives?

I'd also add that most of the experts believe that deflation is the big risk, not inflation. Sure we could have inflation down the line, and there are ways to deal with that. But in the short term, if we don't stave off the risk of deflation, we fall into the trap that Japan did last decade.

Originally Posted by teomaxxx

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-1519067.html

"The IMF says tax cuts and public spending and borrowing boosts all over the world will be useless unless the financial system is rebooted.

Its managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, warned: "If there's not a restructuring of the banking system, all the money you can put into [monetary and fiscal] stimulus will just go into a black hole.""

Thats it. All bailout money are wasted, unless politicians stop to support capital sucking blackholes (aka 90% of banks) and let them bankrupt. There is not enough money to cover all their loses (it only started with housing, watch for much more and bigger problems like CDS).
The current system cant be saved, it have to be rebuilded again.