>If you drop hundreds of billions of dollars paying for government workers that the government cannot afford, you are not simulating anything [...] Likewise, if you cut taxes for the rich, and they continue to spend their money in the same way, you are also not doing anything except to run up the debt.
That is the exact point made in the article: that both the Keynesian (Dem) and Chicagoan (Rep) approaches are not going to help in creating jobs.
In addition, you claim the article
>takes whatever the current problem is and announces that it is insolvable
The article closes with noting "no economic theory offers [unemployed Americans] easy salvation" (which is certainly true) and suggests that having a more highly-skilled workforce would help the problem. Do you disagree with this point? Wouldn't it be easier to employ liberal arts majors if they developed a useful skill?
I'm a grad student in Economics, and usually I think the NY Times does an abysmal job reporting on economic issues, but this article did a decent job.
"When this crisis ends, we’ll also be faced with other deep problems. Our tax code is a complex mess; we need a more effective education system; it’s hard to picture a healthy United States in 2050 without some major change in health care. Unlike the short-term jobs crisis, these are areas where we can find compromise. Let’s not do what we usually do by spending the bad times arguing over things that won’t happen and the good times ignoring the things that should. "
The current economic downturn has been called a housing crisis, a financial crisis and a debt crisis, but the simplifying logic of the political season has settled on what is really more a result than a cause. We are now, according to nearly everyone running for office, in a jobs crisis.
Jobs are like money -- they are the end of the process. They are the socres on the scoreboard, but you don't play the game by watching the score. These are metrics of results, not causes. I don't open a business with a chair and a big sign that says "give me money," even though money might be the way I judge success. Likewise, and for exactly the same reasons, you don't sit around trying to "create jobs" Jobs are the result of somebody creating value, they are not a goal in themselves.
I hate to say it, but this was a really bad article. I had a premonition of this when I looked at the title "Can Anyone Really Create Jobs?" It's yet another in a long line of political commentary that takes whatever the current problem is and announces that it is insolvable. This reached ludicrous levels in 2008, with lots of articles asking "Is this the end of capitalism?" I don't know how many of these you have to consume before you finally figure out that no, whatever is happening right now, it's not the end of something that's been going on for thousands of years.
Americans need to start getting honest about their economic situation, no matter what their politics. If you drop hundreds of billions of dollars paying for government workers that the government cannot afford, you are not simulating anything. Money is just continuing to be spent in the same patterns as before. Likewise, if you cut taxes for the rich, and they continue to spend their money in the same way, you are also not doing anything except to run up the debt. If you are living a house you cannot afford, no matter how much we help you, you are probably still stuck in a house you cannot afford, and the rest of us are much poorer. Simply because an idea sounds good to your political party doesn't mean that it accomplishes anything but buying votes. These facts sound cruel, and I apologize, but some of this commentary is beginning to sound like dispatches from somebody's fantasy land. People are smarter than that.