by So I’m not entirely clear on what The Onion is making fun of here, but I have a couple hypotheses: 1. (more obvious) If polls are to be believed, the economy immediately improved once Trump got elected. Yes, this seems absurd if taken literally, but I guess this is what the concept of “animal spirits” is supposed to be all about. If enough people believe that Trump will be good for the economy and act accordingly, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it still doesn’t happen immediately so come on, people. (Also, it doesn’t mean that the old-timey jobs will come roaring back.) 2. (more nuanced) This article was published right after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly “jobs report”, which showed that the unemployment rate increased even though there was
Topics:
Jodi Beggs considers the following as important: animal spirits, econ 101, Economics, economics 101, jobs report, labor force, the onion, Unemployment
This could be interesting, too:
Merijn T. Knibbe writes ´Extra Unordinarily Persistent Large Otput Gaps´ (EU-PLOGs)
Peter Radford writes The Geology of Economics?
Lars Pålsson Syll writes Årets ‘Nobelpris’ i ekonomi — gammal skåpmat!
Lars Pålsson Syll writes Germany’s ‘debt brake’ — a ridiculously bad idea
So I’m not entirely clear on what The Onion is making fun of here, but I have a couple hypotheses:
1. (more obvious) If polls are to be believed, the economy immediately improved once Trump got elected. Yes, this seems absurd if taken literally, but I guess this is what the concept of “animal spirits” is supposed to be all about. If enough people believe that Trump will be good for the economy and act accordingly, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it still doesn’t happen immediately so come on, people. (Also, it doesn’t mean that the old-timey jobs will come roaring back.)
2. (more nuanced) This article was published right after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly “jobs report”, which showed that the unemployment rate increased even though there was an increase in the number of jobs in the economy. This seems weird, but it’s what happens when people enter the labor force (i..e either start working or start looking for work) and not all of them immediately find jobs. I initially thought that the reappearance of the middle class was supposed to be this increase in the labor force, but I could be overthinking things.
Other thoughts?
You can also see the post on the original site here.