Reason has a look at some of the mistakes Japan made in the early nineties when their real estate bubble burst. The moves they made then prolonged their depression, leading many to refer to that period in Japan as the "lost decade". The policies included raising taxes on business, government loans for failing businesses, embarking on "infrastructure projects", and reducing transparency in an attempt to protect the markets. Any of this sound familiar? Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. And we are rushing headfirst down the exact same path. If the fools in Washington really wanted to stimulate things, they would slash corporate and capital gains taxes in half. That alone would generate tremendous financial incentive for investors to inject more capital into the markets. Funny that the quasi-socialist economies in Europe are figuring this out (see Ireland for a good example), while we are stuck with the plan of using policies that have repeatedly failed in the past. Now that is depressing!