Perhaps the most important question being asked, now that we have avoided a melt-down of the world’s financial system is, “Will America lead the world out of recession into a new era of economic growth, or will America have a “lost decade,” which was Japan’s unfortunate experience after its credit crisis?”

The sort of decade in store for us, and for the world in which the America economy bulks so large, will be determined more by government policy than by economic forces. Economics will matter, but only as it is affected by government action.