Paul Krugman: Yes, We're In A Liquidity Trap

PK:

Yes, We're In A Liquidity Trap: Some comments on various blog posts ask what evidence we have that liquidity trap economics is any different from normal economics. Um, the answer is staring us in the face: the failure of interest rates to rise despite very large budget deficits. If you had told most people, back in 2007, that the federal government would soon be running budget deficits in the vicinity of 10 percent of GDP, most of them would have predicted soaring interest rates. In fact, quite a few people did predict just that — and in some cases lost a lot of money for their investors. But it hasn’t happened. Short rates have stayed near zero; long rates have fluctuated with changing views about the prospects for recovery, but stayed consistently below historical norms. That’s exactly what those of us who understood liquidity-trap economics predicted, right from the beginning.

I don’t know what more evidence you could ask for. After all, interest rates are what the liquidity trap is all about.