A Gilded Planet

If I held public office right now, this is the speech I would make over and over again. I would stand on every soapbox that would have me delivering this message. And I would probably be ignored or marginalized. "The official unemployment rate is nearly double what used to be considered normal just a few short years ago. And that official rate does not even include millions of underemployed and long term unemployed Americans. Years after the financial crisis, employment in this country is still deeply depressed. Not only does this mean untold hardship for millions of unemployed Americans and their families, but it is also causing permanent damage to our economy since long term unemployment damages the skills and earning power of workers forever. Given this stark reality, it is unconscionable that the leadership of this country is not doing everything in its power to end this jobs crisis now. "The saying goes that those who don't know their history are doomed to r...

I'm working on a longer post about the current status of the U.S. economy, but I want to quickly note that Ryan Lizza's article for the New Yorker, though impeccably written, is really quite lacking as far as good piece of reporting goes. As a puff piece designed to burnish the reputation of Larry Summers, it gets four stars. But I expect a lot more from the New Yorker than that. For more on the problems with Lizza's profile, check out what Dean Baker and Matt Yglesias have to say. Paul Krugman has an interesting take as well. I do want to try to clear up some fuzzy thinking about economic policy that appeared in New Yorker and that Nikhil Dixit over at the Cal Dems blog seemed to commend in his post: Yes, unemployment is rising, but that doesn’t mean the stimulus is a failure. It wasn’t designed to stop job loss altogether. Rather, it was designed as a backstop. Don’t ask what unemployment is now, ask what it would have been without the stimulus (FYI, most economists ...