I wish I'd had the the picture above to share in the comments on this date when I posted the following short quote with no comment or picture --
"The stimulus did what it was supposed to do, it ended the Great Recession and it jump-started a recovery."
-- Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's and a former adviser to John McCain
The response was surprising and I got a little carried away myself:
Raymond Atkins: Terrell let's don't be muddying the waters with facts. Roy, was that today?
Adam Stanley: Kubrick faked the moon landing for NASA while he was making 2001.
Neal Brackett: I've got some ocean front property in arkansas for sale.....
Terrell Shaw: There's a Teabagger meeting coming up, Neal... I'll bet you could make a sale there.
Adam Stanley: no teabagging allowed in this place...
Richard Dick Sapp: Joe Wilson has the correct answer
Neal Brackett: Not selling property in Alaska yet....
Ray Langley: Terrell, as I ride around I'm seeing a lot of "Now Hiring" signs. Maybe that doesn't mean recovery but it seems to be a start.
Laurie Craw: Terrell you are very brave to post information contrary to the general perceptions. This Mark Zandi you quote, is he still alive?
Richard Dick Sapp: Propaganda for the masses
Terrell Shaw: Thanks for the comment, Dickie, but give us more. Help us understand your point-of-view. I'd be interested in knowing how you'd have handled things differently in 2008-2009. The economy by every evaluation that I know of was on the brink. The American auto business was in collapse. We were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs every month. Banks were failing left and right. Huge companies were going under. However you feel about the President's measures (and Bush's during his last few months) after they were implemented jobs losses lessened and eventually turned (slowly admittedly but also undeniably) and, though the recovery is far from complete, the recession ended.
Should we have just stepped back and let the economy find its bottom, then try to work our way out over next couple of decades? Are you a true believer in complete laissez-faire?
It is easy to proclaim an argument "propaganda". It is harder to support the charge with facts.
The primary argument on your side is the increased deficit spending, which is universally despised -- even by me. So go at it.
Walter Jack Gibson: Did not end the great Recession. It did not even stall it.
if socialists were in charge of the Sahara Desart there would be a lack of sand.
Terrell Shaw: Ah, another charge without evidence. Jack my friend, you are welcome to your own opinion but not your own facts.
Neal Brackett: Well w/o documentation, Zandi's comment is merely opinion or what researchers might call "anecdotal evidence".... but FB is hardly the place for large amounts of statistical analysis. We are all lobbing our own versions of horse hockey, based on the shade of glasses we happen to wear or which way the wind blows.
Terrell Shaw: I worked very hard for a change of direction in 2006 and 2008. As a result of the votes of a majority of Americans some important changes have been made. I am committed to doing whatever I can, ethically, to seeing that those efforts are given an opportunity to work. Two years is not soon enough to show a complete recovery. Jobs are still way below where we want them. There are still way too many bank failures and foreclosures. But there is clear evidence of improvement. I have posted some of that evidence several times. And everyone agrees that we cannot maintain the astronomical deficit spending for long. At some point we've got to come together enough to actually DO something about it. If we continuously jump from one tack to another, this ship of state may never get where we want it. We have chosen a path out of this. We need to stick it out at least two more years. Two years of stalemate (or even a complete change of direction again) is NOT what we need. I hope America will stick with this pragmatic, compromising President and keep him enough help in Congress for his programs to have a chance to succeed.
So I am gonna try my best
• NOT to "lob horse hockey",
• to resist the natural inclination to ascribe evil intent to those who disagree,
• to avoid ad hominum attacks
• and instead to post some real stuff to think about.
I love my country. I believe to my bones that the trend toward the concentration of wealth in a few hands is just as dangerous to freedom as the reverse. I think the corrupting influence of money, on all sides, in our political life is a danger to our freedoms.
In other words we need Georgia's motto to prevail in our national discourse: wisdom, justice, and MODERATION.
Richard Dick Sapp: Face it a majority of the public was fooled as you were. Any 5th grade knows that you can not spend more than you make. You must only vote by party, bad mistake. You are smart enough to know that the wool was pulled over your eyes. Now be objective and vote for the people that will do what is right.
Terrell Shaw: "Any 5th grader" knows that remarks like "any 5th grader knows" are not debate, they are smack talk. You still haven't given any evidence of the "wool" Mr. Sapp.
The situation "was what it was" in 2008-2009. We could ignore it. We could try a stimulus. We could have done sumpin else. You've completed 5th grade 
tell me your plan. Barack Obama elicited advice from ALL sides. He did not know for sure, any more than you or I did, what the best course was. All he could do was get the best advice he could and act. That's what good leaders do.
The deficit spending has to end, but on the brink of a depression, according to many economists, is not the time for short term deficit fixes. The President did his best to make decisions that avert a depression and lead to a long-term recovery. I think he's on the right track. Wall street reform. Stabilizing the auto industry. Passing health-care reform that many (not you I suspect) believe will reduce the deficit. Stimulating the economy in a way that also improves our infrastructure -- another long-term boon.
When he began to implement these changes - the first 24 days after taking office, the economy and jobs began to improve. Not as fast as we would like but demonstrably.
You are right that the deficit is growing at an unsustainable rate. That's why the tax cuts for the rich, proposed by virtually all of the Republican candidates this year is, in my book, totally irresponsible.
No Republican has given us a surplus in my memory. Do you remember one? Reagan's administration resulted in record deficits - the first trillion dollar one. Bush, Jr. oversaw even higher deficits. Only Clinton managed a surplus.
We know that the previous administration combined increased spending with tax cuts, especially for wealthy folks. This President has also cut taxes on 95% of us, but not on the top 5%. Wealthy Americans pay the lowest percentage taxes of my lifetime and are growing richer than ever while the Republicans scream "class warfare" and our deficit spending balloons and the nation goes to Hell in a handbasket.
Personally, I think our generation, at least those of us blessed by some financial success, should share the cost of pulling our nation out of this mess.
There I go again. Maybe it's because I only teach fourth grade.
Neal Brackett: Reminded by the line from "Inherit the Wind" about Opinions being" bad for business"... my momma thouroughly believes this is so, and she would be giving a longer winded lecture than you posted above if I posted serious lengthy political or theological editorials... please don't take it personal if I lob a little horse hockey in fun.... promise it's clean horse hockey that hasn't touched the dirt yet (veterinary humor). I miss the friend that was on FB that leaned farther to the right than you do to the left. He seems to have dissappeared from FB, perhaps his opinions were "bad for business." ... not something that you have to worry too much about when teaching 9 and 10 year olds that are more conerned with the latest Disney film.
Terrell Shaw: Neal, if it weren't for my right-wing friends, I'd have many fewer friends. My six siblings are about as far right as you, and I love 'em every one despite their horse hockey views.
In economic terms, at least, I am a confirmed moderate, I obstinately hold that the best answer is almost always a good ways from both extremes. Unfettered socialism is despotic. Unfettered capitalism is despotic. Both wreck havoc with liberty. Richard Dick Sapp: The only way to changed the economy is to give tax breaks to big business to stay in the us and give jobs to Americans, Gt. Motor bailouts should never happen. Try to listen to more Grocho Marx then Karl when you fall off your limb
Terrell Shaw: I love ol' Groucho. Never been much of a fan of Karl, though. I'll try to keep ahold of the limb!
Like I've often said, the far right and the far left are both bad news. Nobody liked the bailout, but w/o it, the US Auto industry would have bit the dust, I think. The bailout of Gen Motors was a one-time, last-ditch, emergency measure, and (shocker!) it actually worked! The president was wise enough to tie it to some tough requirements and follow it up with some reforms that might just help to keep us out of that position in the future. More good economic news today. And as Ray said above, "Now Hiring" signs are starting to sprout here and there. Things are slowly looking up.
Richard Dick Sapp: As I stated Gt. Motors was not saved, the taxpoayers own it, the czars have your account number. November is going to be a beautiful month. The moving van are head to DC to clear out the Dems office. Maybe you can get them a job in Rome. Pelosi told me she can dressup like Capt Crunch
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