Averting the Worst

Another great column by Paul Krugman:

So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all. What saved us? The answer, basically, is Big Government.

...reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without [the Obama stimulus] plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall.

All in all, then, the government has played a crucial stabilizing role in this economic crisis. Ronald Reagan was wrong: sometimes the private sector is the problem, and government is the solution.