Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Interesting way to avoid discussion of the basis for the "jobless recovery" claims. I'm quoting unemployment numbers and trends, and you're denying that this is germane to the "jobless recovery" topic? The whole point was, originally, the employment numbers don't seem to be rising to a degree that implies a job recovery, followed by discussion as to why the published UE stats were misleading.
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Yep. I suspect the best way to tell whether this is ultimately a "jobless recovery" is to look at the statistics (or "guesses" as Hank would say) of the net number of jobs created each month during the recovery. Or, is that just too simple -- folks?
The overall net numbers (recession plus recovery) aren't great for the administration so far (about negative net 2.5 million so far IIRC). We'll see how much that improves by November -- or whether at least Bush will be able to talk about "1 million new jobs created in the past year", etc.
Bilmore's basic underlying point is indiputable -- i.e that it is possible to stretch definitions dishonestly and thus blur the statistics and argument. Whether or not Krugman was doing that in the various pieces and columns discussed here is more disputable. It seems to me that in at least one piece, Krugman was talking about sophisticated concepts that are easy to twist.
It is dangerous to rely upon the bloggers' attacks upon and characterizations of Krugman as if they were gospel. The problem may be that Bilmore approaches anything written by Paul Krugman with much the same attitude that I approach anything written by Pat Buchanan -- prepared to hate it and to assume the worst.
S_A_M
