"Ever since the Great Recession began economic analysts at some (not all) major Wall Street firms have warned that efforts to fight the slump will produce even worse economic evils...  A better model, I'd argue, is Japan in the 1990s... There's a good chance that officials are being terrorized by a phantom menace - a threat that exists only in their minds."  Paul Krugman, November 2009. 

Japan's Debt and Growth in "Lost Decade"