Wouldn't it be useful if there was something, anything, in the realm of economic jargon that meant the same thing as the everyday meaning of the same words, insofar as those words even have an everyday meaning?

So now unemployment is either 8.1% or 9.5%, and this means the current recession is almost tied with 1982 for "worst since the Great Depression." Unemployment has an everyday meaning, recession doesn't, and neither word is likely to convey to the average reader what it conveys to Dean Baker, one of the few economists who has actually been right about anything lately.

Even the most excellent economists are constantly having problems with the jargon, and Paul Krugman, another lonely member of the Dean Baker "right about something" school of economics, says "I think quantitative easing (it’s really qualitative easing, but I give up on trying to fix the terminology) is the right way to go."

Enough with this jeremiad, and now... a question for Dean Baker, whom I imagine hovering over his keyboard just waiting to answer a query from some economic illiterate:

Interest rates are so close to zero that the usual neo-Wicksellian games with money supply don't work, for the banks, but...

What about the rest of us?

If you increase my money supply, and lower my interest rates to zero on my mortgage, it would for damn sure have a noticeable effect on me.

So why is Team Obama still trying to get a pulse out of stone-dead banks, and inventing ever more exotic ways to resuscitate those corpses, when the rest of us who are actually still alive continue to pay interest that's way higher than the bank premium, and we could actually use an increase in our money supply and some relief on the interest we still pay the banks?

Forget the dead middlemen! Stimulate us, instead of an economy that nobody can even describe without incomprehensible jargon!

Mr. Baker,

If you're interested in some very sobering information, I'd suggest you check out Matt Taibbi's latest article in the Rolling Stone.

I might add that one should sit for this and have a handy very stiff drink at the ready. I believe Taibbi may provide some more information on your question of "how close are we...."

Taibbi has done a fairly thorough job of analyzing how the whole issue with AIG evolved, the key players and how so much has yet to be done to get us out of this mess.

After reading this, I think we're getting closer and closer...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/1

Read it ASAP!

I think we need to bring more ideas for this purpose. Involvement of young people can be handy in this regard. I am happy to find a good post here. Thank you
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Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!
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