On Feb 5, 2007, at 9:34 AM, Jim Devine wrote:
Doug:
The unemployment rate has been below 5% for some time, and
but any given value of the unemployment rate has a much great impact
of disciplining labor than it used to.
Sure but it's all relative. Wages rose strongly in the late 1990s
because the unemployment rate was well under 5% for a long time. And
then, productivity was rising; now it's slowing. For the first time
in this cycle, a net plurality of respondents tell Gallup that this
is a good time to find a quality job, and the highest share of
respondents since 2001 tell the Conference Board that jobs are
"plentiful." As long as job creation exceeds appx 120,000 a month,
the unemployment rate will fall and the job market will tighten.
Central banks do not like this.
Doug, please stop being so sour. First, there is no "PEN-L orthodoxy."
There are a variety of different views, while there is some turnover
of personnel. Second, while your plaint about lefty crisis-mongering
is largely valid, its repetition got you into the region diminishing
(if not negative) returns awhile back. Especially when adorned with
sardonic and world-weary tones.
I get really tired of leftists going on about the next crisis that
never arrives, or talking like an ordinary recession represents some
great political watershed. Recessions can make the political
environment worse, and booms can make it better. Not that this is a
boom - it's not.
Doug
