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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKrugman: Truth About Jobs
Truth About Jobs
By PAUL KRUGMAN
If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Fridays better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right and were not just talking fringe figures was to cry conspiracy.
Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the B.L.S. truthers was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obamas re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.
It was nonsense, of course. Job numbers are prepared by professional civil servants, at an agency that currently has no political appointees. But then maybe Mr. Welch under whose leadership G.E. reported remarkably smooth earnings growth, with none of the short-term fluctuations you might have expected (fluctuations that reappeared under his successor) doesnt know how hard it would be to cook the jobs data.
<...>
And thats the truth that the right cant handle. The furor over Fridays report revealed a political movement that is rooting for American failure, so obsessed with taking down Mr. Obama that good news for the nations long-suffering workers drives its members into a blind rage. It also revealed a movement that lives in an intellectual bubble, dealing with uncomfortable reality whether that reality involves polls or economic data not just by denying the facts, but by spinning wild conspiracy theories.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/opinion/krugman-truth-about-jobs.html
By PAUL KRUGMAN
If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Fridays better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right and were not just talking fringe figures was to cry conspiracy.
Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the B.L.S. truthers was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obamas re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.
It was nonsense, of course. Job numbers are prepared by professional civil servants, at an agency that currently has no political appointees. But then maybe Mr. Welch under whose leadership G.E. reported remarkably smooth earnings growth, with none of the short-term fluctuations you might have expected (fluctuations that reappeared under his successor) doesnt know how hard it would be to cook the jobs data.
<...>
And thats the truth that the right cant handle. The furor over Fridays report revealed a political movement that is rooting for American failure, so obsessed with taking down Mr. Obama that good news for the nations long-suffering workers drives its members into a blind rage. It also revealed a movement that lives in an intellectual bubble, dealing with uncomfortable reality whether that reality involves polls or economic data not just by denying the facts, but by spinning wild conspiracy theories.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/opinion/krugman-truth-about-jobs.html
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Krugman: Truth About Jobs (Original Post)
ProSense
Oct 2012
OP
ProSense
(116,464 posts)1. Kick! n/t
jsr
(7,712 posts)2. "Frightening to think that a movement this deranged wields so much political power"