by Damozel | Ludwig Wittgenstein said: 'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.' Assistant Treasury Secretary Chuck Swagel didn't have any reassurance to offer about the economy, 90 minutes after the country learned that the country has lost jobs for the sixth months in a row. In fact, as Dana Milbank remarks, words failed him.
Does this mean the economy is worse than the Bush administration expected?
"We shouldn't, in a sense, be surprised when the data are, are, soft," Swagel managed to say.
Does the economy need another stimulus package?
"I-it seems, you know, it seems like that's, that's enough, uh, enough."
What might trigger another round of economic stimulus?
"I don't, I guess I don't have an answer, I mean, you know, beyond saying we look at all the data and, um -- so, my usual line."....
...Swagel, bookish and bespectacled, entered the Treasury Department's briefing room with evident trepidation. He nodded and offered smiles every which way. His heavy breathing, picked up by the microphone, could be heard in the back of the room. (WaPo)
Poor thing. You can't blame the messenger for trying to dodge the bullets or the goat for not wanting to be scaped. What else could he say? 'We're f*****d?'
As Milbank says,
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who was in London yesterday, and Swagel's other superiors in the Bush administration left him with an impossible task: appearing on camera to put a favorable and reassuring gloss on an economy that has gone to the dogs.
Yesterday's report that 62,000 jobs were lost brought the total for the first half of the year to 438,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the Institute for Supply Management reported that its measure of the service sector had declined in June. Stock markets, flirting with a bear market, finished another losing week. Oil pushed to a record high. Inflation and foreclosures are up, consumer confidence is down, and administration forecasts for a "strong pace of growth" in the second half of 2008 are look increasingly absurd.
We know the situation is dire. In case we haven't already seen the handwriting on our own walls, economists who are not affiliated in any way with George Bush keep telling us so.
Memeorandum has more here.
RELATED RECENT POSTINGS
How Uninformed is John McCain About the Economy?
Pearlstein at WaPo: This Recession is a Mean One, and It's Not Going Away
Comments