Stimulus, shmimulus

Immature, I know, but I couldn't think of anything better to describe our continuing need to throw good money after bad. Echoing congressional leaders, President-elect Obama today warns that the recession could linger for years if a new round of supposed government steroids aren't mainlined into the economy.

It won't work. It's been tried, and it's failed. There's precedence here, folks. Japan's success was foremost on our minds in the 1980s. We wailed and gnashed about how we could possibly have let our former enemies get the best of us. Our soon-to-be Japanese overlords were building superior products cheaper and more efficiently. To add insult to injury, they were running around supposedly buying up half of America, the cr?me de la cr?me being that most American of corporate icons, New York's Rockefeller Center. Then Japan entered its "lost decade" brought on by a banking crisis (sound familiar?). Economic stimulus was the order of the day. And what did they get for all the money that was spent? Minimal economic growth, at best. Why were we so paranoid about Japan when they had it good, but failed to take even the slightest note of the lessons learned from when they had it bad? Continue with more of these so-called "stimulus" packages, and the recession will linger for years — we'll be lost for at least a decade.