Where CaliCoug defends the so-called "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act"

[oxcoug]

You should start a Porkulus thread for Calicoug. This is the Romney thread.

An excellent suggestion from Viking.

Cali, bring your porkulus banter hither.

[oxcoug]

Jacob, your assessment of the stimulus as a 'failure' based on the administration's hopeful projections reminds me of my mission, when we would set high goals for baptisms and discussions. Maybe we would try to get five baptisms in a zone one month, and we would only end up with three. Is that really a failure?

Likewise, when someone like Krugman says that the stimulus would have been more effective if it had been bigger, that is an assessment of the bang:buck ratio, and not a judgment of the stimulus as whole. Krugman is saying that the stimulus failed to maximize bang for buck. He is not saying that the nation would have been better off without the stimulus.

And Jacob, I probably share your view of the stimulus. I wish it never happened. I wanted to see the whole financial industry collapse, and build itself up again from zero. I wanted to see the decimation of old money, tied up in financial shell games. I wanted Goldman to get Lehmaned in the buttocks. I wanted there to be serious accountability, even if that meant the destruction of pension funds and 401k's. I wanted the whole house of cards to come falling down, because I think that I have the right skills to thrive in the aftermath of such an armageddon. But I had no such luck, thanks in part to the stupid stimulus. Was it a failure? By some measures, sure, but it certainly didn't fail to destroy my dreams.

Robin wanted me to post this over here.