Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok both lay out their alternatives to massive fiscal stimulus today. Both argue along roughly the same lines — play defense and wait for the measures already taken to work. Tyler also helpfully quoted Warren Buffett’s argument for stimulus yesterday.

It’s important to remember in this argument that nobody really knows what’s going to work and economists are relying on the philosophies that have gotten them this far. The main line of argument right now seems to be over the consequences if the policy we pursue misses the mark. Is it worse to not pursue fiscal stimulus and find that we really needed it or is it worse to run up a big deficit and find that doing so was insufficient to address the crisis?