It was

Monday Smackdown/Hoistred: John Cochrane's Claim in Late 2008 That a Recession Would Be a Good Thing Deserves Some Kind of Award...

The 2008 crash, primarily an oil shortage, yielded the American fracking industry and prices have dropped steadily, except for the wasted stimulus package which drove oil shortage up and almost caused a double dip.

What the stimulus taught me was that sudden government spending causes oil shortages, and likely the 2008 recession was mostly the massive government spending on war without corresponding taxes. I originally though the oil spike was due to technology re-quantizing commerce, the dying mall effect.  And I was in second place with that theory, retail has been hemorrhaging over the recovery

The discovery of the horrendous federal debt problem led to sequester and the longest postwar expansion in history.  The California pensions under went some mild reforms after the pension crisis nearly bankrupted us; California did better than expected, but Jerry is going away.  Illinois managed to survive another eight years as the public sector unions ripped the heart out of the economy.

But it cannot last, we are seeing the inevitable milliennial revolt against a life time of debt payments on behalf of retired boomers.