Peter Orszag, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers walk into a bar ...
I always enjoy those magazine features that aim to prep you for party chatter or sports events you may be unfamiliar with. (Hint for football non-fans: Saying "terrible blocking" will get you out of almost any jam.) So if you're at a nerdy cocktail party tonight and the conversation turns to economic policy, as it so often does, what do you say when someone brings up the new unemployment numbers? If you're a ...- Skeptical progressive. We lost 345,000 jobs in May, giving us a 26-year high unemployment rate of 9.7 percent. I'm not sure Obama is getting the stimulus money out fast enough -- or even if it's big enough to compensate for the losses in the economy. Plus, the bank stress tests had assumed average unemployment of 8.7 percent in 2009 and 10.3 percent in 2010 -- and it looks like we could be headed much higher than both. And the GM bankruptcy promises more losses in the Midwest. We need to be getting more aggressive about combating unemployment and holding the financial sector accountable.
- Charitable progressive. But, look, we lost 504,000 jobs in April and were expecting to lose 520,000 in May -- it's clear that job losses are starting to slow down. Part of the reason the unemployment rate has risen is that more people are now looking for work (if you stop trying to find a job, you're taken off unemployment), which should indicate more confidence in the economy. The fact that stimulus money is still going out suggests that it will continue to play a larger role in reducing unemployment in the future. Some of that stimulus money will be focused on relieving job losses in the Midwest -- that's where Obama has sent Edward Montgomery, his automaker bankruptcy relief czar.
- A conservative. “Working families continue to live in fear of job loss, yet Washington continues to spend without focus or accountability. House Republicans have laid out a serious and substantive plan that puts jobs first and created twice as many jobs as the ‘stimulus’ spending bill that Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid rammed through Congress. Democrats took a go it alone approach that even the Vice President acknowledges is open to scams and wastes money."
-- Tim Fernholz
