In the US, unemployment is substantial, capital utilization is low, policy interest rates are near zero, and longer-maturity safe rates are at historic lows

Project Syndicate: In May, you argued that, when economies face a liquidity trap at the effective lower bound for the nominal policy interest rate, monetized increases in public spending or tax cuts are an appropriate policy response. 

But once interest rates return to “normal,” governments “will have to adjust their fiscal position and its financing accordingly.” Let’s apply this logic to the United States

PS: The challenge is somewhat different in the eurozone, which you have noted is “at constant risk of national sovereign-debt defaults.” The only way to reduce this risk, you argue, is with “a much larger countercyclical recovery fund, proper conditionality to ensure fiscal sustainability, and an effective sovereign-debt restructuring mechanism.” 

At this point, how likely do you think it is that “the consequences of this experiment with socialism” will last “well beyond the end of the pandemic”? 

Willem H. Buiter Project Syndicate 22. September 2020 

https://www.project-syndicate.org/say-more/an-interview-with-willem-h-buiter-2020-09

Willem H. Buiter, visiting professor at Columbia University was formerly Chief Economist at Citigroup.