Barack Obama has defended his massive banking bail out and stimulus packages from last year, suggesting the policies meant the US was able to avoid a Great Depression.

Is he right? It is a simple question, and here is a simple answer.

Barack Obama is under the spotlight again. Well, presumably, if you are president of the US the spotlight never goes away. But this particular bright light concerns all that money the US government piled into the banks.

In the US, the bail out was unpopular, very unpopular. The US economy is still stuttering. What good did all that money do? At least that seems to be the gist of what Mr Obama’s critics are saying.

Yesterday, for example, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said: “One year later, we see plainly that the stimulus was not a well-thought-out plan.” Meanwhile, a certain Sarah Palin said on Facebook: “It hasn’t revived our economy; instead the debt-ridden package will prove to be a drag on our economy.”

The thing is, however, the critics have missed the point. President Obama tried to point that out yesterday, saying: “One year later, it is largely thanks to the recovery act that a second depression is no longer a possibility.”

You may recall, last year and in 2008, when Gordon Brown rushed in to save British banks, the economist Paul Krugman penned a piece for the New York Times saying Brown had saved the world.

These are not trivial claims. But are the claims right?

The answer is, yes. Civilization tottered in 2008 and early last year. It was thanks to the actions of a handful of central bankers and politicians that catastrophe was avoided.

There are some important points here.

First of all, we have learnt from the experience of the 1930s. The main difference between the crisis of 2008 and 1929 is that policy makers had learnt their lesson.

Gordon Brown played a pivotal role in stopping this catastrophe from occurring. You can argue that he was one of the people who was responsible for causing the crisis in the first place, and you may well be right. But give credit where it is due, he stopped the banking crisis from becoming a rout of civilization?

The criticism aimed at Barack Obama, however, is odd. He too played a role in stopping the great Western collapse. And yet, unlike the case with Mr Brown, it was patently not his fault that the crisis occurred in the first place.