Ruled By Ghouls

Economists inside the Demoratic tent were gunning for the expanded unemployment benefits all the way back in May 2020. I point this out to make clear that "the worst thing we can do is do too much to help people" is a very very dominant way of thinking in DC policy circles (all conservatives and many of the supposed liberals).

Also, George Bush wasn't the only one with a tendency to throw up Mission Accomplished banners prematurely.

One not great month is just one not great month, and this will probably be better than the Great Recession, in terms of recovery time, but The Great Recession was fucking awful. That is, for some reason, largley unacknowledged, even now.

We are about 8.8 million jobs behind where we would be if the pre-pandemic trend had continued. pic.twitter.com/BeFQahu8Zs

— Aaron Sojourner (@aaronsojourner) October 8, 2021

The Larry Summers gang was pushing the "just turn the economy off and turn it back on again" view, and that too much aid would prevent this from happening because of lazy moochers. When that obviously didn't happen they didn't change their policy prescriptions because they're lying assholes. 500,000 jobs per month would be very good job growth, and it would take 1.5 years of that to get us back to trend.*

This is unlikely to happen.

*sorry, this isn't correct, the trend is up! so it would take more months than that.