Worth echoing: David Romer writes:
I had one major source of unhappiness with last week’s conference: the participants were largely silent about the dismal outlook in the advanced economies for the next several years. The current outlook for unemployment in the United States, Europe, and Japan is probably worse than it was in late 2008. Then, mainstream forecasts for 2009–2011 showed unemployment rising sharply—but generally to levels below what we are experiencing today—and then returning toward normal at a moderate pace. Today, not only is unemployment higher than most 2008 forecasts of its peak levels, but the expected pace of recovery is weaker.
Despite this deterioration, the dire sense of urgency in late 2008 has not increased. Indeed, it has largely disappeared. I find this complacency in the fact of vast, preventable suffering and waste hard to understand.
Krugman attributes this complacency partly to “lack of nerve in the face of the ferocity of the austerians: anyone who suggests that we actually need to focus on unemployment instead of slashing spending now now now can expect to face harsh attacks,” but mainly to the fact that the unemployed don’t have much political power.
