当前的经济危机已经持续五年之久，且并未呈现复苏迹象。在过去的三年里，笼罩在经济衰退阴霾中的国家政府无一不拒绝，并仍然拒绝采取唯一可以扭转局势的举措，即：刺激总需求。

The current crisis is five years old, and counting. Over the last three years the governments of the countries most affected by the recession have refused, as they still do, to take the only action that would reverse this dramatic trend: that is, to stimulate aggregate demand.

But it was not always like that. There was a time, not long ago, when government stimuli were not a sin.