Krugman Defines a New Economic State - Purgatory

Good job Krugman. On George Stephanopoulos' show, Krugman amplified a much needed new term for the state of the economy, purgatory!

We've got a problem with terminology because we usually say either the economy is in recession or the economy is recovering.   Either you're in hell or you're in heaven.   And the trouble is we're actually in purgatory.   We're actually in a situation almost for sure GDP is growing; almost for sure the business cycle leading committee will eventually decide the recession ended this summer.   But almost surely also we're still losing jobs.   The unemployment rate is going to continue to rise.   So we're in that infamous jobless recovery state.

I am thrilled to see a third economic state defined for this has been a major problem, things are simply not on/off, black/white and the nomenclature doesn't allow for fuzziness. All of these 2D terms and thinking probably exacerbates the infamous green shoots vs. brown weeds ongoing arguments.

So now we have the odious term, jobless recovery redefined as economic purgatory.

Even better, Robert Reich says anyone who thinks we're out of the woods is lost at sea. Watch clip below:

 

Many of us on The Economic Populist have noted correlations between jobless recoveries, now known as purgatory, and bad trade deals, the race to the bottom otherwise known as globalization. It appears Krugman is implying bad trade policies, labor arbitraging workers, also are assuredly not the nirvana they were sold to be!

(ABC has entire show and longer video segment which also discusses health care by Krugman and Reich)

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I have a question

how is Huffington post getting away with taking video clips from other shows, broadcasts and repackaging them as their own, with no embed code or advertising, acknowledgment, from the originating copyright content producer?

I'm serious, they are having video clips on their site with no reference to the originating show (who owns the content), seemingly not ads to support that content (for the owners/producers) and no embed code.

Hmmmm.....

Fair use?

It's a short excerpt used to illustrate commentary.

this was a 20 minute video interview

we do fair use here and you'll see economics blogs pick up on something, expand it etc. from others, borrow graphs...
all of that's ok, as long as a link/src is given but this was different. Maybe they have a deal with NBC.

Purgatory or "New Normal" it doesn't matter

We are doing nothing to change the status quo. Let's re-inflate the bubble is the answer from the Obama Administration.

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

got a link from Krugman!

I'm thrilled for I cannot tell you how many times on EP I had said we need a new term, a new official term for the oxymoron, jobless recovery so honestly I hope the phrase is truly coined! ;)

This post was also reposted by Calculated Risk, which is fine by me. Hello Calculated Risk readers!

Awesome

I bet this phrase catches on.

Krugman must check the posts that link to him.

Friggin awesome.

I've been planning

This comment has been moved here.

A Big Hole

There is a big hole to dig out of.

Take Florida for example:

http://www.localetrends.com/st/fl_florida_unemployment.php?MAP_TYPE=curr_ue

Where are all the jobs going to come from. The last bubble doesnt reinflate

Krugman pictures Economic Purgatory + Helps out the little guy

Krugman is really helping out us in the peanut gallery shouting down at the big guys on the stage by giving us a second link in his latest post.

So, if you've been sitting on that original eye popping graph and want it to be seen....seriously now is the time to write it up...I'm just thrilled the site performance is handling the increased traffic just fine!

I'm all for helping Krugman in all seriousness, push for new terminology to redefine that oxymoron term jobless recovery I believe jobless recovery should be purged, banished to ring 9 of Dante's inferno, never to see the light of day in future professional Academic phraseology.

Krugman in his latest post is whipping out the graphs to explain purgatory and here is the most astounding acknowledgment....

he says this entire new phenomenon is not because unemployment is a lagging indicator.

Delong adds a nod to us little people

Brad Delong gave us a repost/link

In all seriousness, I really hope some of these Titans of Economics consider creating an series of economic states and redefine the system to be beyond this 2D "off/on" descriptive scenario.

I think this is such an issue, how the national interest is diverging from the economy, the national economy no longer being the assumed "leader" to the global economy and the most obvious (to the point of creating economic blog wars) the never ending divergence of the U.S. workforce/middle class/main street economy from the larger Macro economic view.

"Purgatory" is good and I'm going to do my part to spread ...

...it. But "jobless recovery" still has the advantage of being one of the most disgusting buzzphrases since "collateral damage."

Welcome to EP Meteor Blades!

Just a FYI, you can Sign up/login for an account and thus bypass the moderation queue, obnoxious awful CAPTCHA. It's kind of like DK in that everyone has their own blog, plus a comment tracking system.

Yeah, Krugman scored a home run this time because lord knows the entire American work force, middle class is so sick of being discounted and ignored....we're all cheering at the new term!

Thank you, Bob. Actually ...

...I have been visiting EP for quite some time and enjoy (most) of the commentary here. But now I've signed up. However, for reasons made clear in my sig line below, I am mostly here to listen.

 

 

 

 

Not pretending to be an economist

Not pretending to be an economist

Honestly.I may have been

Honestly.I may have been called a few things in my time but never "Anonymous Drive-by".

Nevertheless,as I remember; being in "purgatory" is neither heaven or hell but it's definitely better than being in "limbo". Or is it? What's the difference? Perhaps that would depend on one's political perspective.. and so round it (ie the argument) goes again, stupid.

What about "Anything you can do I can do better" as a more cheerful way to describe this whole global economic, financial and political context?( eg See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY7Hh5PzELo)

In any event, thank you very much for this facility.