Oh Dear: Half Of All US Jobs Created In June Were Created In... Wisconsin

Who would have predicted this.

While Nation Sputters on Jobs, Wisconsin Economy Begins to Hum

[Madison, Wisc…] Earlier this month, analysts were dismayed by the nation’s anemic job creation numbers. On Thursday, state officials were pleased as they released data that showed more than half of the net new jobs added in the US in June came from Wisconsin.

“We have made difficult decisions in our state, but they are beginning to payoff,” said Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R). “The national job figures remind us that we can not rest after one month of good news; while there will be ups and downs along the way, we must help lead the nation to recovery.”

You know who this benefits? Mitt Romney Rick Perry.

The claim will be made that Texas' job creation record is just some kind of fluke. Or that it's just the oil and gas industries. (Perry was on Cavuto a while back refuting just that; he said job growth was spread out among all industries.)

Perry, of course, would like to claim that Texas has fared well during this Great Recession due to the basic conservative economic policies he's pushed.

In this context, Wisconsin's sudden "hum" of economic activity is confirmatory for Perry's position. If something is magic or just plain luck, it can't be replicated, and there's not really any sense trying.

On the other hand, if an economic strategy, like a scientific experiment, results in reproducible results, replicated in various other "laboratories" when attempted, that tends to prove that it wasn't dumb luck or special circumstances at all, but instead a general principle of wide applicability.

It may look like Walker's success in leading Wisconsin out of the darkness is bad for Perry as it suggests Perry isn't so special; Walker can manage that feat too. But then, we're conservatives, and we never believed that any politician was actually Magic in the first place; this distinguishes us immediately from liberals.

We never thought Reagan was magic. We thought he had the guts and insight to bring the right thinking to the job and the results her produced were not magical, but mechanical, flowing almost inevitably from the scheme of incentives and conditions he favored.

So, Perry isn't magic. But the basic strategy of low taxes and controlled and limited expenditures by, and regulations imposed by, government is magic.

Well, not magic. Better than magic. Magic only works for Chosen Ones.

It's science, that works for everyone who tries it.

Wait, I'm Contradicting Myself Some: If it works for whoever tries it, then, it should favor any economically conservative candidate, which is most of them, I suppose.

True, but there''s always the question of whether you can back up theory with test results. Perry has that big ace to play -- half (or more) of all jobs "created" by Obama just happened to be created in Perry's state of Texas.

Oh: What a dunce. I'm sitting here looking at the national picture and ignoring the much more obvious Wisconsin picture.

We have active recall elections going on.

This will tend to undermine calls for recalls of the Republican senators who bravely stood up for the job-creators, won't it?

posted by Ace at 02:43 PM

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