Things Are Not O.K.

• This is still a terrible economy, and policy makers should be doing much more than they are to make it better.
• Robert Reich | The Austerity Death Trap
• Paul Krugman | The Austerity Debacle

Paul Krugman, New York (NY) Times

In a better world — specifically, a world with a better policy elite — a good jobs report would be cause for unalloyed celebration. In the world we actually inhabit, however, every silver lining comes with a cloud. Friday’s report was, in fact, much better than expected, and has made many people, myself included, more optimistic. But there’s a real danger that this optimism will be self-defeating, because it will encourage and empower the purge-and-liquidate crowd.

So, about that jobs report: it was genuinely good, certainly compared with the dreariness that has become the norm. Notably, for once falling unemployment was the real thing, reflecting growing availability of jobs rather than workers dropping out of the labor force, and hence out of the unemployment measure.

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Related:

Robert Reich | The Austerity Death Trap, Robert Reich, Huffington Post

• Unless the GOP agrees to a budget deal before year's end, the payroll tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits we have now will end. The scale of this fiscal contraction would be almost unprecedented.
• The only way out of this vicious cycle is for the government -- the spender of last resort -- to boost the economy. The regressives are all calling for the opposite.
• Misguided deficit worries make unemployment worse
• Tax the super-rich or riots will rage in 2012

Paul Krugman | The Austerity Debacle, Paul Krugman, New York (NY) Times

• The austerity doctrine that has dominated elite policy discussion both in Europe and, to a large extent, in the United States for the past two years is a stunning failure of policy.
• Paul Krugman | Nobody Understands Debt
• World economy set for another major downturn