America will look resilient for a few months. The payroll tax deal has averted a fiscal shock
That's just nonsense. The stupid Social Security tax cut (let's call it what it is) has no impact on anything other than putting Social Security into deficit for the second year in a row -- a decade before we expected it.
Spending is not stimulative for anything but spending. Consumer and government spending have returned to pre-recession levels, but still capital expenditures (and thus employment) are at historical lows. This is as it must be. Consumer spending doesn't hire employees, capital does. And business is keeping its capital in a "lockbox".
But Pritchard is a believer in the power of consumer spending and inflation, so it all makes sense to him.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is a good writer. I like his analysis, but he has been pretty bad at predictions.