He said what?

So Larry Summers, late of the White House National Economic Council, has argued in a recent piece in the Financial Times that the US is "halfway to a lost economic decade" and that the economy is in need of serious help, including additional stimulus spending.

Isn't that kind of like the snake oil salesman coming back to town six months later to inquire after your health?

Summers was one of the prime architects of the Obama economic policy that is focusing on deficit reduction (meaning domestic spending cuts) and tax gimmicks to, they say, inspire the "confidence on Wall Street" that will, yes indeedy, "get the economy moving again." Last July, in the same Financial Times, he was preaching precisely that, chapter and verse.

Well, welcome to the real world, Mr. Summers; it's just too bad you couldn't have done that when it might have made more of a difference.