Krugman On "Fears and Failure" and "phantom menaces."

Paul Krugman:

So we’re paying a heavy price for Washington’s obsession with phantom menaces. By looking for trouble in all the wrong places, our political class is preventing us from dealing with the real crisis: the millions of American men and women who can’t find work. MORE...

Krugman: "I’d say that the Fed’s policy is to do nothing about unemployment."

Paul Krugman:

Last month more than 14 million Americans were unemployed by the official definition — that is, seeking work but unable to find it. Millions more were stuck in part-time work because they couldn’t find full-time jobs. And we’re not talking about temporary hardship. Long-term unemployment, once rare in this country, has become all too normal: More than four million Americans have been out of work for a year or more.

Given this dismal picture, you might have expected unemployment, and what to do about it, to have been a major focus of Wednesday’s press conference with Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. And it should have been. But it wasn’t.
(SNIP)
I’d say that the Fed’s policy is to do nothing about unemployment because Ron Paul is now the chairman of the House subcommittee on monetary policy.

So much for the Fed’s independence. And so much for the future of America’s increasingly desperate jobless. MORE...

Today's Helpful, Optimistic Observation about Unemployment

Mark Sumner (Daily Kos):

Earlier this year I made a trip to Australia where the minimum wage is $15/hr. Australia suffers from a staggering unemployment rate of almost 5%.

Howie P.S.: Sumner was responding to an editorial in the New York Times: "A Minimum Wage Increase."

"MUST SEE: USA unemployment by county 2007-10" (with video)

Lupin's diary on Daily Kos, video (00:38):

This is an animated chart of the progression of U3 unemployment rates by county between January 2007 and today. MORE...