Solving the jobs crisis through despair

Some goodish news from the Fed...

The unemployment rate, it predicted, would still be at least 8.5 percent at the end of 2012, at least 7.8 percent at the end of 2013 and at least 6.8 percent at the end of 2014.

But at least that's a drop in unemployment, right?

Such reductions probably would come in part from people abandoning the search for work, rather than those finding new jobs.

 (Sigh.) Expect government officials to tout the falling unemployment rate even as other indicators—median wages, number of households in poverty—continue to stagnate or get worse.