The vagueness and hand-waving here is frustrating... but as a once-upon-a-time op-ed columnist, I understand why Herbert's pieces are intermittently weak.
Op-ed writers only have about 800 words to try to make a point or two. So the concrete suggestions and detailed citations are often thin, as a matter of the form.
And they may have to write to exactly that word budget (as here with Herbert) on schedule twice a week. He can't tell his editor, "I've only got 600 words today", or "Here's 1200 words you can run a day early." So sometimes they've got more to say than fits, and other times have to stretch half-thoughts as filler.
This one is 804 words, and seems worse than most such columns in its generalities. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if it's just an initial 'expression of concern' that gets followed up with his pet recommendations in future columns. (The same clockwork word budget that hurts the form in some ways helps in others -- no one column should be thought of as standing completely apart from the series, even though it may get forwarded that way.)
Still, blogs are rightly crushing this op-ed form. Blogs give greater flexibility of pace, size, interactivity, citation-via-linking, etc. -- meaning smarter, deeper discussion.
Thank you for your perspective on the matter. I had assumed something along those lines, but it is still frustrating to see someone making an argument as important as this without two fundamental parts:
1. Data to back the argument up.
2. Some recommendation.
Which reminds me: does anyone, anywhere, actually have a recommendation? I know the HN crowd would say "start a million startups!" but realistically, what can we as a society do?
1. While it is easy to find egregious examples of unsubstantiated claims on the New York Time's Op-Ed page, this is not one of them. I don't read about the economy obsessively, but I am perfectly aware that most pundits, forecasters, and in general the whole national peanut gallery expect unemployment to continue to rise, save for the usual suspects on the stock-pumping circuit. Herbert's remaining assertions were attributed and partly in quotes, indicating he talked to the person in question and they said that.
2. A recommendation is not necessary. In the real world, away from the relentlessly optimistic and "going forward" business-speak, every observation of bad news does not have to be followed by a powerpoint slide titled "Lessons Learned" with a bullet point list of glib generalities only unknnown to retarded people even before the shit hit the fan. It is even possible that there is nothing we can do to change the economic course of the next few years, although that is a topic separate from guessing at what that economic course is most likely to be.
It is perfectly ok to simply observe where we are gonig withou having a suggestion on how to turn. For example, let's say a couple of guys were working on a startup; one of them figures out that something has fallen though, and there is no way to win. You have to tell the other guy, and argue with him if he doesn't believe it, even if you don't know how to avoid whatever impending disaster is on the horizon.
Personally, I don't see a way around a prolonged period of reduced consumer spending and employment. Furthermore, those that do have jobs will save much of what they earn but it will be inflated away or used to cover the recent loses of financial institutions, so they won't even get full benefit of it. The government policies that will be best in the long term will likely make this period even worse -- balancing the Federal budget to reduce inflation will put more federal workers in the job market and cut benefits right when they are needed, for example.
I think the best thing for me to do is to focus on building a better business, and be fairly conservative in saving and spending now, os that if thing sget worse I am not forced to make really stupid choices by lack of resources. I think planning on the future having a lot of unemployed young males, and thus an oversupply of freelancers, is smart.
One trend that I think is worrisome, and I don't know of anything to do to prepare for it, is the combination of large numbers of unemployed, under employed, or generally economically insecure young males, and the fact that it seems to me (most obviously on reddit, but also from other places) that this same demographic has a fascination with police brutality, tasering, outrage at idiotic TSA goons, etc. (All of which is probably justified.) It seems to me that there is higher than usual likelihood that some large gathering, such as a concert or political event, will result in a riot with lots of pissed guys who want to fight the cops and have been thinking about how to do it for a while. That won't be good.
Op-ed writers only have about 800 words to try to make a point or two. So the concrete suggestions and detailed citations are often thin, as a matter of the form.
And they may have to write to exactly that word budget (as here with Herbert) on schedule twice a week. He can't tell his editor, "I've only got 600 words today", or "Here's 1200 words you can run a day early." So sometimes they've got more to say than fits, and other times have to stretch half-thoughts as filler.
This one is 804 words, and seems worse than most such columns in its generalities. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if it's just an initial 'expression of concern' that gets followed up with his pet recommendations in future columns. (The same clockwork word budget that hurts the form in some ways helps in others -- no one column should be thought of as standing completely apart from the series, even though it may get forwarded that way.)
Still, blogs are rightly crushing this op-ed form. Blogs give greater flexibility of pace, size, interactivity, citation-via-linking, etc. -- meaning smarter, deeper discussion.