U.S. gross domestic product grew by just 12 percent in five years after the summer of 2009. Compared with past recoveries, that’s feeble. In the first five years of the 1960s expansion, the U.S. economy advanced by 35 percent. Growth was 28 percent in the first five years of the “Reagan recovery” of the 1980s. Europe’s situation is worse. Growth in the euro area stalled. Deflation is a threat. Economists say that expansion is sluggish because businesses and consumers are spending too little; the new fear is that there’s nothing to make them spend more. Aging populations and efforts of some governments to build ... (full story)