The Conservative Washington Post

January 27, 2004

I see the conservative Washington Post got in a new supply of pot last night. That’s the only way I can explain their logic in today’s editorial, The Jobless Recovery.

Mr. Bush should not be blamed for this, though his irresponsible fiscal policy harms business confidence and therefore job creation. But the bigger question is whether jobless recoveries are a bad thing. They are, after all, the flip side of good news.

Duuuuude. So like…see…black is the absence of light… … and like white is like ALL the light, dig… so like they’re both opposites but they’re …. the same, like!

Moreover, a jobless recovery means, by definition, that each worker is producing more. Higher productivity, in turn, is the best promise possible of higher wages and employment in the future.

What? I’d like to see that mapped as a supply/demand curve. Higher productivity means more work out of less people, which would seem to depress hiring and cause wages to stagnate.

I mean, wouldn’t it?

I’m no economist, I have an English degree, but why is it that the supply/demand curve works the opposite direction when the product in question is labor?

Just look at the past decade: The jobless recovery of 1991-92 ushered in the longest economic expansion of the postwar period, which drove unemployment down to previously unheard-of levels, and fueled improvements in poverty, crime and other social indicators.

Oh, now I understand. They’re not reversing the supply-demand curve, they’re saying it’s always darkest before the dawn. Bleak and dark times are the best promise of good times ahead, because how can you have good times ahead when they’re already here now? Right?

Well, yeah. But encouraging policy that creates dark times… that’s like breaking your arm so you can be happy later when it finally heals.

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