Not good news, but not unexpected, despite those illusory job numbers. The Professor (my emphases):
From G.D.P. to private-sector payrolls, from business surveys to new claims for unemployment insurance, key economic indicators suggest that the recovery may be sputtering.He notes that the Beltway economic discourse is soaked in the language of fear, but not of anything that's actually happening. There's fear of budget deficits causing a "debt crisis," fear of a "disastrous plunge in the dollar," fear of "runaway inflation." The guy with the 310 million tits (there's an image for an angry septuagenarian) makes the perp list, along with many others.
And it wasn’t much of a recovery to start with. Employment has risen from its low point, but it has grown no faster than the adult population. And the plight of the unemployed continues to worsen: more than six million Americans have been out of work for six months or longer, and more than four million have been jobless for more than a year.
It would be nice if someone in Washington actually cared.
Do the scare-mongers even believe their own stories? Maybe not. As Jonathan Chait of The New Republic notes, the politicians most given to apocalyptic rhetoric about the deficit are also utterly opposed to any tax increase; they argue that debt is destroying America, but they’d rather let that happen than accept even a dime of higher taxes.Check this post (and this handy graph) for more on the unemployment picture — it's not at all pretty, though it's pretty to think that it is. Long-term unemployment, especially in young, just-emerging workers, is "a tale of young lives blighted, not just in the short run but perhaps permanently."
So — a sputtering recovery (with "double dip" written all over it) and a generation whose future is permanently stunted by malnutrition shortly after economic birth. That's what the next phase of the crisis looks like.
Take note, those for whom the crisis is the plan.
And take note, those who voted for them. This is your work too.
GP
