Larry Summers, now the highly influential director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, concluded as a young economist that “financial and monetary shocks are less important sources of depression than we had suspected.” If the economy was foolproof, and if so many good policy options existed to deal with crisis and distress, there was less need to avoid mistakes.
学院经济学家能够影响政策，这一点也很清楚。目前身居贝拉克·奥巴马总统国家经济委员会主席这一极富影响力之要职的拉里·萨默斯（Larry Summers）年轻的时候曾经断言：“金融和货币冲击在引发萧条方面的重要性被我们高估了。”如果经济简单得连傻瓜都懂，如果对付危机和困难有那么多好的政策选项，也就不需要避免什么错误了。毕竟，事后诸葛亮总是容易的。