Go read the whole thing. Dave Johnson:
But DC is not only not talking about jobs, they are talking about austerity — cutting the very things that create jobs. History and the experience of other countries as they struggle to crawl out of the economic collapse has shown again and again that government investment in infrastructure and education and scientific research and manufacturing are the path to recovery. England, Greece and others trying austerity are falling back into recession. Meanwhile China is investing hundreds of billion in high-speed rail and other infrastructure. Germany is investing in manufacturing. Others are investing billions more in infrastructure. All are pursuing green energy sources.
Mired in austerity ideology, we are doing none of these. For example, on a PBS NewsHour discussion of the House vote rejecting a “clean” debt-ceiling bill Tuesday, Rep. Peter Roskam said,
…any raising of the debt ceiling has to be preconditioned upon cuts that drive towards a real economic recovery and long-term growth and prosperity and job creation.
Rep. Roskam actually claimed that cutting the things that have proven to drive growth and job creation will drive growth and job creation.
Inflation is the enemy of the rich because it reduces the value of their wealth and their incomes from interest and dividends. Unemployment is the friend of the rich because it keeps wages low and therefore less pressure on inflation by, as they quaintly say, “the cost of labor”.
Inflation is the only thing they care about, that and interest rates. High unemployment is a good thing for them. They are in charge and will do what they want.