Krugman: The Payroll Data

[ProSense]

The Payroll Data

Another quick note, this time on what the payroll data say. Again, you want to focus on somewhat longer-term trends, not monthly numbers. Over the past year the employer survey says that we’ve added 1.8 million jobs, or 150,000 a month:



<...>

This is substantially more than the number of jobs we need to keep up with population growth, which is currently something like 90,000 a month. (The number used to be higher, but baby boomers are getting old — the same thing that affects the household survey.)

So the two survey are saying the same thing: job growth fast enough to make gradual progress on the employment front. Not fast enough; it will take years to restore full employment, and we should, um, end this depression now. But the progress is real.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/the-payroll-data/

[iemitsu]

1. one sane voice in the wilderness.

Last edited Sun Oct 7, 2012, 02:45 PM - Edit history (1)

i know very little about economics or math but i remember sitting in a couple of econ. courses in college and thinking that the theories and underpinnings of what was being taught were seriously flawed. i struggled because i could see the flaws but could not articulate why i found them troublesome, and i could not suggest any alternatives. this was in the early days of reaganomics, when trickle down was first being promoted.
i did my best to memorize what i needed to know to pass the class (got a B+) and left, relieved that i didn't have to sit though any other classes like that.
turns out, that my instincts were spot on and those teaching economics were full of shit.

[Hydra]

3. It's a sign of the lazy science they use now

Basically, they have something they want to do(cut taxes on wealthy people) and they write their theory from there on why that should work for everyone.

The sick thing is that no one seems to think these theories should be put through the meat grinder. I think it's part of a wider problem, where people are allowed to say things, and they aren't supposed to be challenged on them unless it's a progressive idea. Republicans are allowed to call themselves the "Family values" party, Creationism is considered a valid concept to teach with evolution(or instead of), and Milton Friedman + Ayn Rand = UNDISPUTED TRUTH!

[iemitsu]

4. your observations ring true.

these conditions also reflect the growing presence of "endowed chairs" on university and college campuses.
this is a technique that has allowed the uber-class to interject their perspectives into academic discourse to counter-balance the perceived, liberal bias of university professors.
it works like this: an institute or a rich individual "endows' a chair, they pay the salary of the chair and they get to appoint the professor who sits in that chair. this bypasses the normal hiring process and places corporate stooges in university classrooms (like skipping the peer review process before marketing new scientific data). this end run, legitimizes the positions the chair espouses and exposes students to the philosophy and justifications sited for pursuing the goals promoted by the chair.
john yoo is a prime example of this program. he has been teaching at berkeley since advising bush that torture was legal. is he really the best man to be teaching future lawyers at a prestigious university?
i read lately that schools of economics stopped teaching courses that dealt with the great depression twenty years ago. that the freshwater school, a laissez-faire approach to economics promoted by the university of chicago and others, pioneered the teaching of economic theory outside of the context of the real world.
most leading economists today were trained by this school, milton friedman clones.
as you say, one side, in academic, or political, or environmental, or religious, debates is given uncritical acceptance while actual evidence is ignored in an effort to discredit the other side.

[porphyrian]

2. . n/t

[ProSense]

5. Kick! n/t