The Summer of Recovery Is Over; The Fall of the Economy Is Here

Ring in Labor Day with this news: The U.S. shed another 54,000 jobs in August, slightly advancing the 9.6 percent unemployment rate.

Good news: Most of the jobs lost were government jobs, as the 2010 Census wound down and the Stimulus ran its benighted course. The private sector added 67,000 jobs in August.

What is to be done? Robert Reich stands on his desk and calls for -- what else? -- a second stimulus. Easy for him to say! Los Tiempos de Nueva York explains that nobody's interested in buying another ticket for the Royal Nonesuch:

President Obama on Monday said his administration was weighing new steps to bolster the economy, but any measures are likely to be small. His options are limited given that Congress has shown little appetite for more spending before the midterm elections in November, in which Republicans are hoping to reclaim both the Senate and the House.

And nobody will ever invest in the stock market again.

Pauly Krugnuts says this proves he was right all along.

Comments

[Attorney]

Best title and alt text EVAR!

[Fist of Etiquette]

I don't know how thoughtful Krugman can be while some hobo is cooking him on a stick.

[John]

I watched that idiot Christina Romer speech at the National Press Club last night. It is just astounding that someone who holds such an important position and is respected enough to teach at Stanford could hold such stupid views.

It is like if phrenologists took over the Justice Department and started throwing people in jail based on the shape of their skulls. And then when the crime rate sky rocketed got up and said "Now our models tell us that we have prevented millions of crimes. Think about how much worse things would be if we weren't following our models and theories".

It really is just mass insanity. Keynesian economics didn't work in the 1930s. It caused stagflation in the 1970s. And these people still believe in it despite all evidence to the contrary.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

To the greatest extent possible, I've tried to find kind words for Christina Romer, but that speech is just... To paraphrase Concentration Camp Ehrhardt: What she does to economics, we are now doing to Poland.

[John]

Yes. And what is sad is that people like Romer will never pay a price for it. She will go on to a six figure tenured position at Stanford and spend the rest of her life explaining to sympathetic audiences how she really was right. And in twenty or thirty years after a new generation grows up and never learns the lessons from this debacle, her or someone like her will be right back in power doing the same dumb shit over again.

[Rob McMillin]

But in the morning, she will still be ugly.

[John]

Obama does have a thing for fat ugly women, Romer, Sotomayor, Kagan.

[kinnath]

Michelle is just a beard

[Restoras]

Interestingly, so did the last Democratic president.

[alan]

Restoras|9.3.10 @ 10:38AM|#

Interestingly, so did the last Democratic president.

An all too common misunderstanding. When Bill was allowed to roam on his own, he picked up skinny skanks who over used the hairspray. Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, etc to the tenth power.

The staff at the White House would not let him near any skinny skanks, so the man adapted to his environment. Any man who has ever dropped his standards for one night of tubby chasing should understand after reading from the Star report when engaged in sexual activity with Monica, Bill performed every maneuver in the book to avoid sight of her nasty, cellulited ass.

[fish]

Well in contrast they make him look so much prettier!

[Spiny Norman]

Kagan isn't really a woman, though. She's actually played by Mike Myers.

[Jerry]

How can Krugnuts enjoy the economic progress of Germany, a country which doesn't even have a minimum wage law?

[Tulpa]

Is there any conceivable sequence of events that Krugman wouldn't take as proof that he was right?

[Herr Krugman]

The fact you're asking this just proves the stimulus was too small.

[fish]

Yeah but in mathematics they call that the trivial solution.

[Jason]

Doing nothing and the economy recovers by itself?

[Jason]

On second thought, Krugnut's claims seem to be unfalsifiable.

[Inigo Montoya]

Stimulus. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does.

[MP]

Good news: Most of the jobs lost were government jobs, as the 2010 Census wound down and the Stimulus ran its benighted course. The private sector added 67,000 jobs in August.

Good? That's awesome news.

It's a shame it's too difficult to have two separate employment indexes, public and private (i.e. % of unemployed who are seeking public sector jobs vs. % of unemployed who are seeking private sector jobs).

Public sector jobs are not "created" jobs, because the creation of jobs is a function of the economy, not of tax collectors.

[R C Dean]

Pauly Krugnuts says

Thanks for towing the lion, Tim.

[creech]

Instead of more stimulus money, what would happen if the Federal Corp. Income tax was repealed? Would U.S. and foreign corporations rush to expand in the U.S. so they could avoid taxes on profits made here? As long as
Obamassiah is throwing crap at the wall, let's try this and see if it works.

[KPres]

"The private sector added 67,000 jobs in August."

Now that the economy will finally be allowed to enter recession and restructure itself, the private sector can get back to creating wealth, because we're going to need a lot of it to pay back all this worthless debt Barack Obama created renovating toilets on military bases.

[Old Mexican]

Los Tiempos de Nueva York

Se escribe El Times de Nueva York.

Puta madre. No pueden escribir bien en ingles, y ya quieren escribir en espanol.

[cornholio]

Pero es la traduccion literal, no?

[Old Mexican]

And nobody will ever invest in the stock market again.

Nor should they. It's Gold, Guns and Whisky time!

[libertymike]

Two nights ago, while driving home, I turned the dial to Michael Savage between innings of the Bosox and the Birds, only to hear his guest, a Faux News financial commentator, assure all that T-Bills are the safest investment as "the government will never go broke."

Can you believe it?

[fish]

Michael Savage makes me ashamed to not be a lefty.

Then I stop thinking about him and it passes.

[Slut Bunwalla]

Michael Savage is batshit insane, but consequently pretty entertaining. Plus his voice is very pleasant listen to, I've always thought.

[Corduroy]

T-bills are safe for now. I wouldn't be buying in 30 year notes though.

[Mike M.]

Robert Reich stands on his desk and calls for -- what else? -- a second stimulus.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

-Albert Einstein

[Corduroy]

You're assuming Reich remembers or even cares what he had said before.

[Mr. FIFY]

This Labor Day, it's a good thing to remember that non-union employees are people, too.

[P Brooks]

A few nights ago, I was at a little gathering; most of the people there were not really friends, or people I see regularly. One girl (who, as it happens, graduated from the same college I did) works at a local museum. She was gushing about how totally awesome it is that Obama sent them a bundle of StimulusBux which allows her to sit on her rapidly widening ass and catalog a bunch of dogeared garage sale quality old photographs.

Yay!

[libertymike]

I take it you did not spend The Night at the Museum?

What was her major?

[Gushing Girl]

General Studies. Why do you ask?

[libertymike]

I thought you might have majored in poetry.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Krugnuts is like a high priced management consultant who knowingly gives advice too big and sweeping for the client to risk acting on. When it all goes to Hell, it isn't his fault because you didn't take his advice.

Krug wants $4.5 trillion. If we gave him 4.5, he'd want 8. It's nothing but ass covering. Any good news is 'caused' by stimulus. Bad news? He said along the stimulus wasn't big enough, and it never will be.

[fish]

The "Elmer Gantry" of Keyensianism.

[P Brooks]

I have no idea what her major was; it certainly wasn't economics.

[Corduroy]

BWI - Bachelor's of Willful Ignorance

[Pauly Krugnuts, Phrenologist]

Scoff all you want you ignorant nay sayers, but what you don't understand is phrenology came in to being a little too early, as certain fields of higher mathematics had not been developed at the time.

I apply non-Euclidian geometry when I measure head bumps which gives a far more accurate reading than standard geometry. You austerian phrenologist don't even use mathematics, so what the hell do you know? My way is much more sciencier than yours.