I regret there have been so few posts of late. I recently finished a consulting contract for a high-tech firm here in Seattle, and have been tied down interviewing for jobs. Slow going, since both locally and nationwide jobs haven't exactly been growing on trees. This is probably the shortest Krugman column he's ever written, but it's also one of the most powerful. Paul's article should put a chill down your spine. It's terrifying to realize not only that our current macroeconomic policies are creating the worst jobs market, relative to the state of the recovery, since at least the great depression, but that the people making those policies seem completely out of touch with their effects.
How much of this direct factual evidence of the administration's incompetence must there be before the mainstream media (and mainstream America) takes real notice and calls them on it? It's not like it would be hard.... just go back to Campaign 2000 and walk through all of Al Gore's predictions about Bush's tax cuts, the ones Bush repeatedly labeled "fuzzy math", and compare them to Bush's own predictions and to the reality which followed. Then do it for every major piece of fiscal policy since the inauguration. One good example would be the dividend tax cut, which was supposed to cause a major hiring boom (and to be fair, it did, in Bangalore).
Fortunately, in my own case, the search for employment has gone well (maybe getting that PhD has finally paid off?) and I actually have a couple good positions to pick between, albeit at the lowest rate of pay I've accepted since 1998.
So my apology about the scarcity of posts. Be assured that this will not be one of those "I have only three posts in me" blogs, so expect the pace to pick up shortly -- cogito
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