Was it worth it?

Via Paul Krugman, here is the Congressional Budget Office's forecast of the output gap—the difference between potential real GDP and actual real GDP:

That looks to me like seven years of subpar economic performance in exchange for about five or six years of rising housing bubble. But Krugman thinks the seven years may be optimistic:

No, I don’t know where that recovery in 2015 is supposed to come from; my guess is that it’s basically the CBO unwilling to project a depressed economy more or less forever.

He adds:

The CBO also projects unemployment staying above 8 percent until late 2014 — again, with no clear explanation of why it should fall sharply in 2015. This translates into a human catastrophe for the long-term unemployed.

Bubble Meter was created to try to warn people of the housing bubble, but many didn't want to listen.

So here's the question: Was the party really worth the hangover?