Pundit Round-Up: The Economic Forecast Edition

Paul Krugman, at The New York Times:

Ugh. That was a seriously ugly jobs report (pdf). Almost no job creation, with slow private-sector growth offset by falling public-sector employment; a falling employment-population ratio; and (I don’t know how many people have picked this up), an actual decline in wages, albeit a small one.

Let me emphasize that last point. My bottom line on the inflation-deflation issue has always been to look at wages; you can’t have a wage-price spiral if wages ain’t spiraling. And they aren’t, to say the least.

It’s important to realize, by the way, that stagnant wages are NOT good for recovery; all they do is ensure that the burden of debt relative to income remains high, keeping demand and employment down.

The situation cries out for aggressively expansionary monetary and fiscal policy. Instead, however, all the political push is in the opposite direction.

Adam Serwer, writing today for The Plum Line:

Today’s jobs report is terrible. While the Republican response borders on self-parody, the White House has shown a complete lack of leadership on the issue.

As Jared Bernstein wrote this morning, most economists expected the economy to add about 120 thousand jobs. Instead, only about 18,000 jobs were added, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. While the economy added 57,000 private sector jobs, the public sector lost 39,000, offsetting what were already modest gains. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, state and local government payrolls have shrunk by over 500,000 since 2008.

Complete lack of leadership.  Sigh.

Jamelle Bouie, at Tapped:

In a sane country, a jobs report like this would send lawmakers into a deep panic as they scrambled to do something for the growing mass of unemployed people. As it stands, Democratic lawmakers aren’t willing to expend energy on new efforts to reduce unemployment, and Republican lawmakers have staked their ground against federally funded job creation. Instead, the entire political class is trapped in a fantasy world where deficits are the greatest threat to the health of our republic, and spending cuts are the necessary cure. Even President Obama has taken leave of reality; in his most recent weekly radio address, the ostensibly Democratic president endorsed the worst of right-wing economic fallacies:

Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.

In a sane country, indeed.

Jonathan Chait, at The New Republic:

Jonathan Bernstein objects:

I disagree with Jonathan Chait, who basically accuses the Republicans of preferring the economic conditions that would help them elect a president in 2012.

I ought to clarify this. I certainly don't think Republicans are consciously taking steps they think will hurt the economy. That isn't how most brains work. Rather, they understand that the state of the economy is the primary variably impacting their chances of regaining power, and then reasoning toward a view of the economy that melds their self-interest with their perception of the public good:

And perhaps best of all, President Obama’s senior political adviser David Plouffe:

“The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers,” Plouffe said. “People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate, they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’”

What Mr. Plouffe seems to not understand, is that the situation in this country is SO BAD, that the two points are now indistinguishable from each other.

And if you don’t follow Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Twitter @RBReich, please do. He manages to do a fabulously academic job of making really, really, really good suggestions to the administration, in 140 characters or less.