What is David Brooks talking about?

In short, I enjoy David Brooks, but I have to wonder what he is talking about in some columns, especially today's.

He does address issues pertinent to today's economy, but he somehow identifies all the wrong symptoms of the problem. He is relying on an article by Nicholas Eberstadt in Commentary, the extremely conservative magazine. Some clarifying facts. 
  • Brooks writes: If Americans were working at the same rates they were when this century started, over 10 million more people would have jobs. As Eberstadt puts it, “The plain fact is that 21st-century America has witnessed a dreadful collapse of work.”

    Fair enough. But there is no mention of the dramatic shift as baby boomers start to retire.

    There is a comparison in the Eberstadt article with the 1982 recession, but this is very misleading. The 1982 recession was a dramatic drop and quick pickup in economic activity. However, the 2007 recession was a credit crunch which any economist will tell you takes longer to recover. 

  • Brooks laments the lack of Americans moving across state lines. Curiously, he compares statistics between 1950's-1960's with today's migration habits. "For example, Americans used to move a lot to seize opportunities and transform their lives. But the rate of Americans who are migrating across state lines has plummeted by 51 percent from the levels of the 1950s and 1960s."

    The curious part of this comparison is the 1950's to 1960's was the latter half of the Great Migration was between the 1950's and 1960's. People were moving to take advantage of work opportunities, but a big motivator was overt racism.

    Another curious omission is no mention of the aging population. They do tend to move less often, and they take up a much greater percentage of the population than they did in the 1950's-1960's.
The 2008 Great recession will take more time to recover from, and many of the economic ills that have Brooks concerned will heal with more time. Compared to other nations, the US has weathered the Great Recession better than most, but clearly we still need to improve. 

And finally, I have to point out David Brooks never discusses economic inequality. This is probably because David Brooks has a heart, unlike the author in Commentary. The article that spawned Brook's op-ed spent the 4th of 4 sections blasting economic inequality as liberal claptrap (my words). On this matter, I have to agree with Brooks. It wasn't worth mentioning. 

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