Cato Institute fellow Will Wilkinson wrote earlier this week: I am slowly reaching the conclusion that the current debate over fiscal stimulus — like prior debates over monetary stimulus, and the causes of the financial crisis — has exposed the cluelessness of (many? most?) professional economists and ought to be considered an embarrassment to the profession. In the debate over economic stimulus, I hear many otherwise brilliant people making a lot of baseless conjectures about mass psychology — about consumer and creditor “fear” and “uncertainty,” and what to do about …
