Seems to me that there are some people who are saying that the economy is broken and we need to fix it by actually doing things differently (business strategy, organization, etc.) and there are those who just use words like “downturn,” which suggest that this recession is part of the cyclical behavior of the economy which happens regardless of whether we’re doing things right or wrong. The notion of a stimulous package—hastening the cycle back to the good part of it—must fall with the latter point of view because it proposes not to change the way we do business but to prop up the old way and speed its return. Is there some contradiction with this and say, global warming? “Conservatives”/Republics (accepting this distinction) seem more likely to make the case that global warming is cyclical while “liberals”/democrats are more likely to speak of global climate change. My guess is that science is used as a rationalization when convenient, not as any kind of principled worldview. I guess this pointless analysis relies on the fact that economics actually teaches us anything. But there’s a lot I don’t know, too.