{"id":5815,"date":"2008-12-14T00:27:19","date_gmt":"2008-12-14T07:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=5815"},"modified":"2008-12-14T00:27:19","modified_gmt":"2008-12-14T07:47:07","slug":"paul-krugman-cant-be-pessimistic-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=5815","title":{"rendered":"Paul Krugman Can't Be Pessimistic Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Krugman engages in some negative speculation on December 4th<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The economy is falling fast. We\u2019ll see what tomorrow\u2019s employment report says, but we could well be losing jobs at a rate of 450,000 or 500,000 a month.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remember, that number was Krugman attempting to be pessimistic<\/em>. Then, only a week later<\/a>, after he’s read a fresh report on unemployment claims:<\/p>\n

So are we now losing jobs at the rate of 600,000 a month? 700,000?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not criticizing Krugman; I don’t think anyone has done a better job of talking about the economic crisis. I just find it notable: even a pessimistic, liberal economist can’t be pessimistic enough<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Are you terrified? I am.<\/p>\n

A chart of our plummeting employment, provided by yet another Krugman post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s really bad, it’s just getting started, and it’s worldwide. I hope all “Alas” readers have stable jobs and a supportive community, because it’s going to be a lousy two years to be out in the cold.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong>: In comments, Penny <\/a>writes:<\/p>\n

Definitely all kinds of reasons for serious pessimism, but starting the graph in 1999 maximizes the drop; here\u2019s the long view since the late 1940s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Krugman engages in some negative speculation on December 4th: The economy is falling fast. We\u2019ll see what tomorrow\u2019s employment report says, but we could well be losing jobs at a rate of 450,000 or 500,000 a month. Remember, that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-and-the-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}