That Which Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Stonger

Yesterday the Fed announced most of the big banks passed their stress tests, and so there was a huge bank rally at the end of the day. What was amusing was this little line from those sneaky anti-capitalist news reporters at the WSJ:

The stress-test results—together with signs that bank lending is perking up in the U.S.—suggest the unpopular bailouts of 2008 and 2009 helped to stabilize the banking system during the financial crisis and put the economy on the path for recovery.

This is the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression in terms of the cumulative depth of contraction from the onset of the recession. Four years later, when the economy finally starts to show some strength, it is supposedly due to our savvy governmental intervention. Talk about grading on a curve.