The Post tells us that the February jobs report was "surprisingly bleak." Actually, there is no reason there should have been any surprise. We are seeing an $8 trillion housing bubble deflate. It has decimated the housing market and now it it is hitting consumption. There is a large body of data -- retail sales, car sales, UI claims -- that all support the fact that the economy is going into a recession. The only surprise in this story is that anyone would be surprised by the job loss used in February and that the Post would rely on these people as experts on the economy. The Post's experts apparently have not even discovered the housing bubble. The article later tells readers that, "the economic troubles stem from a crisis in debt markets that developed last August and touched off a wave of home foreclosures." Yes -- that is really what the article says. People had their homes foreclosed because of a credit crunch. How does that work? You owe $200k on your your $240k home and the bank calls you up and says that they are going to foreclose because of a credit crunch? The Post gave virtually no attention to the housing bubble on the way up. Its economic "experts" were so ill-informed that they could not see an $8 trillion bubble in front of their face. Now, even as the bubble is collapsing and pulling down the economy with it, the Post still can't see anything.
--Dean Baker
