fiscal policies in the US have been very far from "lax" -- they have been highly engineered via "quantitative easing" to artificially grow the economy (the debt

fiscal policies in the US have been very far from "lax" -- they have been highly engineered via "quantitative easing" to artificially grow the economy (the debt, really) through massive money-printing and asset inflation programs. "Lax" policies would have avoided repeated and continuous intervention and let the chips fall where they may.