Paul Krugman's column today about how America should learn from and perhaps emulate Germany's work-sharing program to reduce job losses is very similar to Kevin Hassett's Bloomberg News column on Monday making the same point. Mr. Krugman doesn't credit Mr. Hassett. Maybe he didn't read Mr. Hassett's column and just conincidentally came up with the same idea, or maybe Mr. Krugman, who is a partisan against Republicans, did read Mr. Hassett's column and is just embarassed to acknowledge publicly that he is thinking along the same lines as someone who advised Senator McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Update: Mr. Hassett comments, in response to a query from FutureOfCapitalism.com about the two columns: "Looks familiar, doesn't it? The good news is Krugman isn't always wrong, which is very newsworthy." What neither Mr. Hassett nor Mr. Krugman really focus on is that during good times, the American system has less unemployment than Germany's does. According to the "Harmonised Unemployment Rate" maintained by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany's unemployment rate was 9.8% in 2006, 8.4% in 2007, and 7.3% in 2008, while that in the United States was 4.6% in 2006, 4.6% in 2007, and 5.8% in 2008. That's something to consider carefully before we go rushing pell-mell to follow Mr. Krugman's advice to adopt a German-style jobs policy.
Krugman, Hassett, and German Unemployment
https://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2009/11/krugman-hassett-and-german-unemployment
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