"What’s striking here is that fiscal stimulus is a small player. It would be even smaller if one took into account the fact that stimulus has made economies stronger than they would otherwise have been, leading to higher revenues and smaller unemployment benefits. What dominates the picture instead is the consequences of the slump, in falling revenues and higher social insurance payments."
He also wonders, Bond Vigilantes: Where Are They Now?. Ten year bond rates have fallen back down, but there's no outcry like when they rose. "And what’s wonderful about this, from the point of view of the deficit scare-mongers, is that they can keep on doing it, even if there isn’t any actual upward trend: when interest rates rise, they can issue dire warnings, go silent when they drop, then go back to dire warnings as rates rise back to the previous level."
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