July 02, 2004
Easily pleased
Posted by
Mark Kleiman
The economy, having lost 1.9 million private-sector jobs since January 2001, added last month half as many jobs as had been expected, and fewer jobs than we need to add every month to absorb the growth in the size of the labor force. The President, and his flatterers, profess satisfaction.
Notice that only a pessmist could be pleased by such a bad number; an optimist would have exptected better. Who was it who coined the phrase "The soft bigotry of low expectations"?
