Pessimists on the Economy Don't Exist at the <i>Post</i>

I was surprised to read the Washington Post quote economist Mark Zandi this morning: "'the economy has been measurably worse than anyone expected,' with a surprisingly sharp 'collapse in employment and surge in unemployment.'"

This is surprising, because the economy has absolutely not been "measurably worse than anyone expected." It has been pretty much following exactly the course that some of us predicted. In addition to myself, I can think of Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitiz and Jamie Galbraith as economists who said that the economy was sinking faster than the projections used by President Obama implied. Here is an example and here, and here.

It would be nice if some of these folks could acknowledge being wrong rather than falling back on the no one could have known story. The great thing about doing economic policy in this country is that you can be wrong every single day on everything you say and it doesn't affect your credibility one iota.