Open Thread

April 10th, 2009 9:58 AM

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Is the recession ending?

President Obama's top economic adviser said that in the "next few months" the economy will no longer be in "free-fall" as the administration's fiscal stimulus measures and efforts to stabilize the financial markets take effect. The sense of a ball falling off a table, which is what the economy felt like since the middle of last fall, I think we can be reasonably confident that that's going to end in the next few months, and that you'll no longer have that sense of free-fall," Lawrence Summers said Thursday at that Economic Club of Washington.

Hmmm. In February and March as porkulus and the budget were being discussed, the world was close to coming to an end if we didn't spend a ghastly amount of money. Now, just weeks later, things are looking up? Maybe we should suspend ALL of the outlays that haven't yet been dispersed if that's the case?

Closing question -- Is this: wishful thinking and part of the administration's recent attempts to jawbone an economic recovery; exemplary of how disingenuous the "world is coming to an end if we don't mortgage our future" claims were, or; both?