No golden egg from this goose

Fox News reports that new applications for unemployment insurance reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November. According to the Department of Labor, there were no special factors that distorted the numbers. Therefore, this news is more evidence that employers are cutting jobs again as the economy slows.
Many economists had warned that a robust recovery was by no means guaranteed. Now, some are now predicting a double-dip recession and/or a lengthy period of stagnation like the one Japan experienced for about a decade.
Reportedly, the prevailing thinking in the Obama administration has been, in essence, that “it can’t happen here.” I think this explains (though only in part) why Obama has so aggressively ignored public opinion and pushed a left-wing, tone-deaf agenda. The assumption was that the economy would bail him out in time.
And so it may. But it’s not going to bail out congressional Democrats this fall. And it’s probably time for the White House to recognize that our traditional Golden Goose of an economy cannot be taken for granted and to ask whether its policies are helping to make it infertile.