That's what Andrew Sullivan calls Martin Wolf, financial columnist with the Financial Times. Trouble is, Wolf makes the same criticisms that many of our best economists are making: there should be no cautious holdback on the stimulus bill. Commit a reasonable portion of our GDP to our recovery or we risk doing an inadequate job and sending the global financial markets into a death spiral.
Wolf sees it as Obama's potential and catastrophic failure, the end of any hope for his presidency.
What is needed? The answer is: focus and ferocity. If Mr Obama does not
fix this crisis, all he hopes from his presidency will be lost. If he
does, he can reshape the agenda. Hoping for the best is foolish. He
should expect the worst and act accordingly.
Sullivan writes: "...The more I read, the more one fears that the package isn't big enough to arrest the free-fall in demand." He goes on:
But $500 billion is still a lot. If the two risks are a) recklessly
pumping more debt into an already debt-ridden economy and b) not doing
enough to rescue demand, then the package seems like a not-crazy
compromise.
Wolf doesn't waiver.
Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much. If he fails
to act decisively, the president risks being overwhelmed, like his
predecessor. The costs to the US and the world of another failed
presidency do not bear contemplating. ... Yet hoping for the best is what one sees in the
stimulus programme and – so far as I can judge from Tuesday’s sketchy
announcement by Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary – also in the new
plans for fixing the banking system. I commented on the former last week. I would merely add that it is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years’ economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome.
To tell the truth, I don't much like that either. I'm all for focus and ferocity. Wolf may be a tad self-dramatizing gloom-monger here. But I agree to this extent: Obama needs to ramp up the ferocity. About an hour ago, according to the New York Times, the deal reported earlier today may be proving more fragile by the minute.
