Greece needs a gyro...get it? Because it sounds like "hero?" Goodness, I'm clever.

Happy Birthday to the $787,000,000,000.00 stimulus package! Wow, they grow up so fast. Yep, one year ago we slung a neighborhood-sized bag of money at the economy to stop our rapid descent into inevitable doom. Did it work? Well, no one will ever really know the answer to that question, as we didn’t get the chance to let the alternative play out. If I had to guess, I would say that if we hadn’t en­acted the stimulus plan that a lot more jobs would have been lost and the debt crisis we were experi­encing would still be in full swing. Obama evidently agrees with my assessment. I think it’s the big ears we both have. They’re like economic satellite dishes on either side of our heads.

Tee-hee. Self-deprecation.

Across the globe, Greece is having a fun time trying not to go bankrupt. It appears that Goldman Sachs (our good buddies from the very beginning of the debt crisis) assisted the Greek government in some “creative accounting procedures” that effectively masked the extent of their deficit. So, a la Bernie Madoff, when the money ran out, the game ended. It is yet unclear what the European Union is going to do in dealing with this new debt crisis, but it is a sobering event showing that the world econ­omy still has some lumps to knead out.

Baking metaphor: check.

And, of course, we have a gigantic debate raging over the historically loose monetary policy that we are implementing (printing money like crazy). There are many out there that would have you believe that we are mortgaging our children’s lives away to the Chinese and we will soon be crippled by the one-two punch of unabated inflation and rising taxes.

Bad news first: they’re probably right to a certain extent. We are printing money like crazy. History has shown that such a habit never ends well. However, we are dealing with a “lesser of two evils” type of scenario. Back in the 30’s when we were mired in the Great Depression, the major mistake made was that government cut off stimulus measures too quickly and sent our country back-sliding into financial ruin. Ben Bernanke, our fearless Federal Reserve Chairman and resident Depression-scholar will not allow us to repeat that same mistake.

Does that mean we might make the opposite mistake of over-stimulating? Quite possibly. But the great hope is that our new ability to gather economic feedback in live-time (thank you technology) will allow us to be more nimble in our policy changes.

The good news here is that we can at least see this storm coming. Also, the silver lining is that infla­tion will increase the price of most assets uniformly, meaning home prices are going to start moving North once again. That’s good news for those who own homes and good incentive for those who are thinking about home-ownership.

Hint hint, people.