Terminal Keynesian Psychosis

I was listening to NPR on my way back from my morning workout when I heard that Ben Bernanke and Larry Summers had said that they saw evidence of "green sprouts" starting to appear in the economy. This is the same deluded Bernanke who recently said the recession would bottom by mid year with recovery late this year and into 2010.This is the same guy who professes to be an expert on the great depression. In medicine we call people who who create their own reality "psychotic" when their reality does not conform to the generally accepted perception of the bulk of humanity. And Larry Summers said much the same thing. Now people, keep in mind, these our your national economic leaders. It is possible that Larry and Ben believe what they say.. It is even possible they might be correct.But I think it is also possible they are suffering from TKP syndrome, or Terminal Keynesian Psychosis and folks who suffer from this terrible disease for which there is no known treatment must be treated with compassion and bundled up and led away to the Potomac State Home for the Economically Confused. Ilargi on the excellent site Automaticearth a few days back ran some graphs comparing the Great Depression looking at today's recession or depression from a world wide perspective. I will not reproduce the graphs here. They are stunning. The graphs compare world industrial production, world trade and world equity markets. The drops we are experiencing today are steeper and more severe than the period starting in 1929. I am willing to believe that there is a possibility that Larry and Tim and Ben and Alan and Neil and all the other economic keystone cops in DC are correct but looking at the data I have dredged up, I certainly cannot see any green shoots pushing up through the rubble.