Are We There Yet?

This is something I wrote on Friday for CBS on how long it will take the economy to recover, but it didn't get posted until today:

Are we there yet?

I noted that policy can speed the recovery, and that we are not doing enough -- hence the forecast for a slow recovery. But I wish I would have emphasized the point made by Christina Romer a bit more, i.e. that even though the recession is due to a financial collapse, and recovery from this type of recession is notoriously slow, we are not destined to have our own lost decade. Effective policy can shorten the recovery time. But as things stand now, including the forecast for (the lack of aggressive) policy, it's hard to see how things can turn around anytime soon.