Taking Candy From A Baby

White House Tally Appears to Overstate Stimulus Jobs - WSJ.com: "Some Head Start preschool programs reported that stimulus money saved the job of every staff member who received a cost-of-living pay raise, according to their filings. Some colleges and universities counted every part-time student work-study position as a full-time job, according to their reports, which are published online at recovery.gov."

This really feels like piling on, but this measurement issues for the stimulus' effects offers an extreme example of what can happen when there are no performance standards involved. In an increasing quantitative world combined with demographic and fiscal inevitabilities, this may be the impetus to expand the expertise of performance measurement professionals from investment management to other less obvious fields.