” I think the stimulus package was very stupid; it was awful. It’s just a tremendous waste of money and it’s going to cause some trouble in terms of a bigger public debt, it’s just wasting resources. But the more important thing is the financial system, and somewhat the housing related aspects. So on that, despite a lot of floundering around, mostly I think what they were doing is in the right direction. Since the Lehman disaster – I think they made a big mistake by not bailing out Lehman Brothers, I think they recognized that two days later.  I think that was Paulson’s individual fault and responsibility from what I can gather.” — Robert Barro, Harvard economics professor on Obama’s progress so far