Damn Middle Class Jobs, Republi-CON Polly Wants a Tax Cut

UPDATE: "Who benefits from economic stagnation?" Read The New York Times, Rule by Rentier, which notes that "[c]onsciously or not, policy makers are catering almost exclusively to the interests of . . . those who . . . lent large sums of money in the past, often unwisely, but are now being protected from loss at everyone else’s expense."

As I said in February 2009, tax cuts are not the answer, this downturn won't be over 'til the fat lady gets a job.

And today's jobs report and other recent dismal economic data shows the results of a pivot away from jobs to other concerns." Read The New York Times, The Mistake of 2010, which points out that:

"[T]he original 2009 Obama stimulus was enacted, some of us warned that it was both too small and too short-lived. In particular, the effects of the stimulus would start fading out in 2010 - and given the fact that financial crises are usually followed by prolonged slumps, it was unlikely that the economy would have a vigorous self-sustaining recovery under way by then.

By the beginning of 2010, it was already obvious that these concerns had been justified. Yet somehow an overwhelming consensus emerged among policy makers and pundits that nothing more should be done to create jobs, that, on the contrary, there should be a turn toward fiscal austerity.

This consensus was fed by scare stories about an imminent loss of market confidence in U.S. debt. Every uptick in interest rates was interpreted as a sign that the 'bond vigilantes' were on the attack, and this interpretation was often reported as a fact, not as a dubious hypothesis.

For example, in March 2010, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled 'Debt Fears Send Rates Up,' reporting that long-term U.S. interest rates had risen and asserting - without offering any evidence - that this rise, to about 3.9 percent, reflected concerns about the budget deficit. In reality, it probably reflected several months of decent jobs numbers, which temporarily raised optimism about recovery.

But never mind. Somehow it became conventional wisdom that the deficit, not unemployment, was Public Enemy No. 1 - a conventional wisdom both reflected in and reinforced by a dramatic shift in news coverage away from unemployment and toward deficit concerns. Job creation effectively dropped off the agenda.

So, here we are, in the middle of 2011. How are things going?"

More proof of the Republi-con double-dip recession.