An unemployment rate of 3.9 percent happened, with or without hindsight. Corporate earnings misstatements do not erase that fact.
It makes sense that at some prior period, the process leading up to a state of overproduction or excess capacity would have generated tight labor markets and rising wages. I think we could say you need a period of good times in order for an economy to get into trouble. Even so, if 5.x percent unemployment is the worst we can find as an economic problem, I think capitalism gonna be 'round a long time. Obviously if the oil runs out too soon the story changes. Also, folks elsewhere are in different straits, but what can they do? reformingly yours, mbs As one economist pithily put it, "What it means is that with the benefit of hindsight, the late `90s never happened." this quote reveals the blinkered thinking of orthodox economists very well: it simply compares two points in time, before and after the late '90s. It doesn't do what Brenner does, i.e., indicate that the late '90s left the U.S. economy with major imbalances that aren't going to be purged for quite awhile. Jim
