Editorial: No certainty in double-dip talk

One of the unnamed Courier editor's most reliably comic riffs is when he attempts comment on economic issues without reference to any understanding of economics.

In lieu of anything useful, Tim (it has to be Tim, since he addresses his readers as "folks") gleans a pile of conflicting and mostly misleading bullet points from teevee pundits and throws them out in no particular order. Around this he wraps a few data percentage points from the City budget director's presentation, and concludes, if I may paraphrase, "Well, I dunno, but it sorta looks like things might be getting a little better."

I would love to see the Courier apply some resources to understanding and communicating the City's budget situation and strategies. I've about given up on that, I'm afraid. Instead we get uninformed surface coverage, uncritical stenography of City bureaucrats, and pap like this.

The reason Tim's seeing so much talk on his teevee about "the question of a double or second dip in the recession" is because both the US and Europe are following the same strategy the Hoover administration established in 1932, turning a cyclical recession into the Great Depression. Nobel winner Paul Krugman has been crying in the wilderness about this for a couple of years while politicians with no better understanding of economics than Tim has drive us all over the cliff with them. Krugman explains why, if you want to know, it's worth the read.