THE WEEK

Is Gary Hart demeaning the electoral process? Hell, he’s lowered the tone of adultery. Millions of men work hard to sustain mistresses in respectability, and this guy goes out on a boat called Monkey Business and makes a joke of the whole thing. Between AIDS and Fatal Attraction, 1987 was a bad year for infidelity anyway. Now it may never be the same.

When the unemployment rate first dropped to 6 per cent, it was widely dismissed as a temporary statistical fluke. Now, after the market crash, unemployment has fallen to 5.8 per cent, testing the ingenuity of the Administration’s perennial critics. The new story is that low unemployment is now a Bad Thing, because it makes the stock and bond markets worry about inflation (even though money is simultaneously said to be too tight). Higher unemployment, on this interpretation, would calm fears of inflation and thus lower interest rates and raise stock prices, and thus prevent recession, which is necessary to keep unemployment from rising. If you understand that, you may be ready for a promising career in economic journalism.

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Is Gary Hart demeaning the electoral process? Hell, he’s lowered the tone of adultery. Millions of men work hard to sustain mistresses in respectability, and this guy goes out on a boat called Monkey Business and makes a joke of the whole thing. Between AIDS and Fatal Attraction, 1987 was a bad year for infidelity anyway. Now it may never be the same.

When the unemployment rate first dropped to 6 per cent, it was widely dismissed as a temporary statistical fluke. Now, after the market crash, unemployment has fallen to 5.8 per cent, testing the ingenuity of the Administration’s perennial critics. The new story is that low unemployment is now a Bad Thing, because it makes the stock and bond markets worry about inflation (even though money is simultaneously said to be too tight). Higher unemployment, on this interpretation, would calm fears of inflation and thus lower interest rates and raise stock prices, and thus prevent recession, which is necessary to keep unemployment from rising. If you understand that, you may be ready for a promising career in economic journalism.