John Merline asks, “Where Did All Those ‘Green Shoots’ Go?”
In an Aug. 2 op-ed headlined “Welcome to the Recovery,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that “we are on a path back to growth.” Eight days later, the Federal Reserve issued a report saying the “pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months.” The next day the Dow tumbled 265 points, and on Thursday initial jobless claims hit a nearly six-month high….
There’s nothing wrong with a little cheerleading. But there’s a real danger with all this “turning the corner, things are getting better, recovery is on the way” talk. If you don’t think so, just ask Herbert Hoover, who infamously claimed that “prosperity is just around the corner” right before the worst of the Great Depression.
At some point, someone is going to have to level with the American people about just how bad things really are and why, despite all the ministrations from Washington over the past two years, they don’t seem to be getting much better.
Merline’s column offers a “Timeline of Pollyannaish Economic Prognostications” along which he shows how ten predictions of better times were wholly at odds with actual conditions.
Sobering, indeed.
Via Opinion: Where Did All Those Economic ‘Green Shoots’ Go?.