In today's seminar on hard-hitting journalism the WSJ's Peggy Noonan observes, with the selfsame squishy puppy shit which she roundly denounces in others, that "Unemployment seems intractable."
It just seems that way, you know? It just sort of hangs out there, intractably, blamelessly, anonymously. No one really knows why unemployment is so damned and disagreeably intractable, but that's the way the stubborn little bugger is. You know? It's a fucking mystery. A real mystery.
I needn't point out how appallingly resistant Noonan & Co.'s brain is to modern macroeconomics, since macroeconomists do it every day in less propagandistic outlets than the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Among the assorted problems we face in what Noonan calls this "age of emergency"--she cites, for example, "the economy, the Mideast, North Korea, Iran" and the president's "utter and historic inability to forge a relationship with Congress"--unemployment is the least intractable of them all. In fact it's a rather easily correctable problem, as--let's face it--the mainstream economist Paul Krugman underscores again today:
The federal government can borrow more cheaply than at almost any point in history.... Yes, there’s a long-term fiscal problem, but it’s not urgent that we resolve that long-term problem right now. The alleged fiscal crisis exists only in the minds of Beltway insiders.
In other words, with those historically low interest rates the federal government could be borrowing and hiring to build and rebuild (sewers, roads, bridges; the entire disgrace of our crumbling infrastructure) as well as rehiring state and local workers who've been stupidly conscripted into America's immense army of unemployment--whose Noonanesque intractability would soon dissipate.
But then Noonan & Co. would have one less crisis to blame on President Obama. And we can't have that.
Peggy "Romney in a landslide because I've seen some yard signs" Noonan has sat at the same table as Krugman and listened to him explain these things in real time.
Her employment depends on her not understanding these things, however.
Posted by: Turgidson | February 08, 2013 at 04:07 PM
She ought to organize a conclave to explore these unknowable mysteries. Bill O'reilly could give the keynote speech on the subject of tides. Shame about the lost opportunities with regard to cheap borrowing. People speak of rebuilding aging infrastructure. And that's a good thing. But when did Americans lose sight of future possibilities and great new national projects? That's even sadder.
Posted by: Peter G | February 08, 2013 at 06:22 PM
^ Grand public works projects don't provide any return for the billionaires and moneyed interests that are doing what they can to siphon out as much of the government's worth and revenue as they can, and have been acquiring increasingly easy access since the reign of Saint Ronald of Reagan.
Posted by: Turgidson | February 08, 2013 at 06:43 PM
Ms. Noonan is one of the very worst pundits in America. That's really saying something. A walking and talking portrait of all that is execrable about the American media.
The Upton Sinclair quote that Turgidson alludes to above explains much of her awfulness, but she adds a smugness and odious nostalgia that makes her writing almost entertaining in its egregiousness.
Almost.
Posted by: JD | February 09, 2013 at 09:35 AM
One of my greatest frustrations is when I'm stuck in traffic between the hours of 7 and 9 am and again between 2 and 4 pm. That's when all of the parents are on the road dropping off then picking up their kids from the overcrowded schools because school bus service now costs about $200.00 per child per semester just to keep the school buses in service. And I always wonder why there are so few jobs when there is so much work to be done, perhaps building more schools and hiring more staff just as one example. But, just like you wrote, PM, if our government especially the jackals in congress would appropriate funds for public works projects that so desperately need to be done, then that would solve unemployment, the economy would boom and one less thing to blame the president for. I wouldn't even mind if they just pass Obama's American Jobs Act and then take all the credit for reviving the economy, but no, keep the whole country suffering because they don't like him. Why is this not treason?
Posted by: AnneJ | February 09, 2013 at 02:28 PM
I am confidently guessing that Noonan had by then moved on to the brown liquors before penning her even-worse-than-usual "analysis".
Posted by: MinneapolisPipe | February 09, 2013 at 05:37 PM