Nothing but blue sky do I see!

If [the poor] would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. (Ebenezer Scrooge, a Christmas Carol)

Both are sentiments — at one time or another, anyway — of today’s financial quack writing in the Star Tribune.

Kevin A. Hassett was a co-author of Dow 36,000, a book published in 1999, shortly before the dot com bubble burst. Oops!

The experience apparently sobered ol’ Kevin (who has dropped the “A,” maybe in a effort to reinvent himself), because he’s got a Grim Reaper thing going now.

Economics teaches that full employment would be reached if wages adjust downward, to a level that better reflects current circumstances. At lower wages, employers would desire more workers. Labor markets generate persistent unemployment only if wages are sticky, failing to fall as demand declines.

A number of reasons help explain why wages don't and won't drop, beginning with federal and state minimum-wage laws.

Gosh, he sounds like Andrew Mellon, the hero of a post here yesterday!

It is perhaps churlish — not to mention unnecessary — to observe that it is improvident indeed to take economic advice from so spectacular a fool as Kevin (A.) Hassett.