Richard Koo on government spending:

Indeed the key lesson from the Japanese experience is that fiscal support must be maintained for the entire duration of the private-sector deleveraging process. This is an extremely difficult task for a democracy in a peacetime, because when the economy begins to recover, well-meaning citizens who dislike reliance on government will argue that since fiscal pump-priming is clearly working, it is time to reduce (what they see as wasteful) government spending. But if the recovery is actually due to government spending and the private sector is still in balance-sheet-repair mode, premature fiscal reform will invariably result in another meltdown, as the Japanese found out in 1997 and the Americans in 1937…

Although government deficit spending should be avoided when the private sector is healthy and forward looking, once in several decades when the private sector gets carried away in a bubble and damages its financial health, a prompt and sustained fiscal medicine from the government is essential in minimizing both the length of recession and the eventual bill to the taxpayers.

(via Mike Konczal, via DeLong)