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Obvious Failure of Stimulus Becomes Obvious Even To Economists
Where do Keynesians go now that even public radio is talking about the failure of one of history's costliest Keynesian stimulus efforts?

At City Journal, Guy Sorman notes how quickly the managed-market winds have shifted. When the credit unwind started, the papers, the TV and the newsweaklies declared capitalism dead in just a little less time than it took for Kent Brockman to declare his loyalty to the Space Ants. Less than two years later, you can't buy good press for the stimulus; the economy is frozen solid in August; the nation is rediscovering -- despite the herniated efforts of local, state and federal government -- the virtues of thrift; and if you search for Keynes on the interwebs, all you turn up are headlines like "How Dr. Keynes killed the patient."

But here's the tell: We're already starting to see the first of the "Today's Keynesians are misreading Keynes" walk-back arguments....

...With only two years’ distance the TARP and the ARRA stimulus (and all the already forgotten lesser stimuli like the $400 billion Federal Housing Finance Regulatory Reform Act of June 2008) can be seen as one of the great public tragedies of our time. But at the end of a tragedy, the survivors learn something and move on. That’s what’s happening now. With any luck in the mid-term elections, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and the rest of the Obama economic bureau may soon become the unemployment statistics they deserve to be. This is good news. Sorman lays out the beginnings of an important reappraisal.