Lots of horrible stuff happening. But economics never sleeps; so, given that we've just gotten more jobs data, can we talk about the "skills gap"? Here's the background data: the ratio of unemployed workers to vacancies 1/ 
Back when there were a lot more unemployed workers than vacancies, it was extremely fashionable to assert that we faced a "skills gap": American workers weren't employable because they didn't have what it took in the modern economy 2/ politico.com/magazine/story…
This sounded hard-headed, as opposed to the soft-headed notion that we just didn't have enough spending, and needed to run looser monetary and fiscal policy (and not obsess over deficits.) Only flaky types disagreed 3/ nytimes.com/2014/03/31/opi…
So, have any of the people who warned about the skills gap and worshipped at the church of Bowles and Simpson engaged in any soul-searching, wondering why they fell for a notion that was obviously foolish even at the time? Not that I've noticed 4/
