Today’s blog was a little later than usual for various reasons – travel, time differences and other activities that had to take precedence. The title comes from a paper I wrote in 2008 which was published last year and reflects the notion that fiscal policy – appropriately applied can always make a difference for the better. I have noted some scepticism about this proposition and claims that the situation in countries such as Iceland refute the confidence I have in the effectiveness of fiscal policy. My response is that these claims misconstrue my statement and like a lot of criticisms of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) they choose to set up stylisations that are not those advanced by the leading writers of MMT. So I thought I would just reflect a bit on that today.