Amity Shlaes and Dean Baker talked by remote link from the New York City studio about the current economic situation. They reacted to a video clip of President Obama commenting that day on the one-year anniversary of signing the economic stimulus bill. They also responded to telephone calls and electronic communications.

Amity Shlaes is a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and syndicated columnist for Bloomberg. Ms. Shlaes is a former columnist for the Financial Times and a former member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of several books, including The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy and What to Do About It and The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is a columnist and the author of numerous books, including Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy and False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy.