Say, didja hear the news? The recession's over! Pass it on.

Don't cry, Chairman Ben! Haven't you

heard? The recession's "very likely over"!

by Ken

A colleague on a listserv took offense yesterday at the good news posted earlier, straight from the mouth of our very own now-and-forever Fed Chairman Ben, that the recession is "very likely over," sing hallelujah! (For the record, what the chairman said in his speech at the Brookings Institution, er, celebrating the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, was, "“From a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over at this point,” to which he added, “It’s still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time, as many people will still find that their job security and their employment status is not what they wish it was.”)

The crotchety colleague responded: "It's obscene to declare the recession over before we've restored 9 million jobs."

I started to write him a note, then decided it might be of help to others who seem to have forgotten why we keep having recessions in modern times. You didn't think it was just for the fun of it, did you?

I started by asking my colleague: But isn't this how we do it now?

Yeah, 9 million is kinda a lotta jobs. And last time we "came out" of a recession, at least the architects of the Modern American Service Economy had arranged to have a certain number of low-wage "service jobs" (you know, of the "Fries with that?" sort) for some of the people who'd been tossed out of jobs that were declared henceforth unnecessary.

But again, isn't this the whole point of having recessions in our Modernized Economy? You know, to separate out the people who don't matter, so the people who do matter can get on with the business of enjoying post-recession prosperity? And if the people who chart the numbers are on top of their craft, as many of those "don't matter" people as possible will also have been drummed out of the statistical measuring techniques, so that they not only don't matter but effectively don't exist. For reference, these would be the people who, as Chairman Ben put it, "still find that their job security and their employment status is not what they wish it was."

I think back to when the last recession was being, or had been, declared over, or very likely over. (Has it occurred to you that the wit to say "very likely over" rather than just plain "over" is what made Chairman Ben such an indispensable ornament atop the Fed, not just deserving but demanding reappointment?) Of course, to much of the country it was news, or really kind of a kick in the groin, that the recession was over. They sure weren't noticing it in their micro-economies. At that time it was my misfortune to happen to catch that pompous ass Larry Kudlow braying with withering scorn at the insistence by some hapless public figure that the economy was still a mess. In his most snotty, derisive tone (and tones don't come much snottier or more derisive than our Larry's), he offered some dismissive corrective like: "Not true, the economy is doing great."

And I guess for him it was.

Now, once we've established that our Larry is one of the elect, one of those swell folks whose economic well-being matter, what do we have to do to get the left-behind rabble to just shut up and leave the quality folk alone?

After all, the way the Modern American Service Economy is structured, it's not as if there's much chance of there being enough prosperity to go around. Not even on the New Economy's own limited terms. We're likely to be left with fewer customers even for those good fat-building fries.


OUR LARRY ON HEALTH CARE: IS HE OUT OF 
HIS MIND, OR JUST DUMBER THAN DOODY?

In case for some reason you haven't been paying attention to Kudlow's Kookeries, when our Larry last week, after President Obama's speech ("not a game changer. Good delivery, bad product"), declared on National Review Online, of which he is economics editor, "The Government Option Is Dead," his explanation was the developing plan's inexplicable continued exclusion of the real solution to all our health care woes: the free market!

"Only the free market will solve our cost problems, doing it in a way that no other government program can."

The piece is so nutty, it's almost worth reading. Krazy Larry derides "big insurance," but seems to like everything about it (e.g., he seems positively giddy that "the private health-care sector . . . is fast becoming America’s number-one industry") except the result, which his "free market" will fix. Does anyone actually listen to this man? (You have to wonder, does he even listen to himself?)

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