Robert Samuelson looks to fear and uncertainty as the reasons that the economy is not doing better. He would be better off looking to national income accounting.
The basic story is that we have a big gap in demand that can only be filled in the short-term by government spending. The reason is simple. The housing bubble was driving around $1.2 trillion in demand that disappeared with the collapse of the bubble.
Roughly half of the falloff in demand was in residential construction. We had a hug...
Published on July 30, 2012 05:32