Looks like the elephants were crying wolf about jobs

>>> the job numbers today are encouraging. unemployment at its lowest point in four years. but i've got to say. i'm shocked. afterall, we raised taxes on the well this this year. but speaker boehner and gang told us that would really hurt the job creators.

>> don't raise taxes on small businesses because they're our job creators.

>> huh? i guess the old job creators didn't skip town after all. of course, republicans told us that helping the uninsured would also help tack the economy.

>> he was also going to focus on creating jobs, remember that? but he focused on obama care and that killed jobs.

>> obama care, alone, is putting a chilling effect on job creation .

>> chilling?

>> yeah. except it hasn't been. but the right sounded the alarm about wall street reform, too. in fact, they said don't even criticize big business .

>> i think the president's attack on the private sector in america is exactly what's wrong with this administration.

>> part of it is the rhetoric that vilifies success. attacks the free enterprise system .

>> sadly, president obama has decided to asack success. it's no wonder so many of his own supporters are calling to stop this war on job creators.

>> it's the funniest war i've ever seen. the stock market is at an all-time high. looked like the elephants were crying wolf about jobs. isn't it about time they learned their less son? joining me now is nobel-winning economist and columnist for "the new york times" paul krugman . his latest book is called kwt in this depression now." mr. krugman, thank you for coming on the show.

>> thank you.

>> the jobless rate didn't skyrocket. can you believe it?

>> well, yeah. remember, we've been here before . you go back to 1993 and bill clinton , by raising taxes on the rich, he was going to kill the economy. they're always wrong but never anything from it.

>> now, in today's column, and as i told you before we went on, i read you religiously. you asked me to do it secularly, but we'll talk about that later. you know that there are still concerns with the stock market . but the highs that we're seeing tell us something important. and to quote your column, the fears and prejudices are entirely misguided and they're also telling us that the people who have been feeding those fears and peddling those prejudice us don't have a clue about how the economy actually works. what do you mean by that?

>> that if you listen to these guys, you just gave us a great set of clips. a bunch of people saying this rhetoric. got to stop trying to help the uninsured. you've got to try to have austerity. if you don't do that, the economy is going to tank and the interest rates are going to skyrocket. that hasn't happened. what does happen, if you cut government spenlding in a depressed economy, that hurts the economy. so what we have to do is the main thing standing in the way of recovery right now.

>> but how do they do it? they just pushed this on ideology? there's no real analysis ? this is so opposite of what they're advocating.

>> you know, when you have a massive media machine , when you have loyal people who go on the talk shows an say the same thing again and again, it doesn't hurt that much if you're wrong over and over again. anybody who paid attention to the wall street editorial page the last four or five years would have lost a lot of money. but it doesn't matter, people just keep oncoming back for it.

>> now, there was something striking about today's job report where the report said we were up in the private sector jobs by 246,000 jobs last month. the public sector lost 10,000 jobs. and, as you and i have discussed in the african american community, latino community, many of those communities are in the public sector space. can you imagine where we'd be in the country across the board, all racial lines, if the gop didn't have this obsession with austerity 1234 .

>> if we had created public sector jobs in line with population growth, which is what we normally do but we hadn't been doing it this time because of awe storety, then we'd have about a million and a half more. we'd have well over 2 million jobs in total. those public sector workers would have the prints and stuff for the private sector . we would be well below 7. so this is -- we would be doing pretty reasonably. not all the way back to full employment , but pretty close.

>> now, talk about austerity. fox and friends this morning had on president jefferson to talk about the need for fiscal austerity.

>> even though you were one of the very first presidents of the united states , you were a budget cutter, weren't you?

>> well, i was. i believe government needs to be simple and frugal.

>> what would you make of the debt we have amassed today.

>> i would consider it to be a crime because we are not only being irresponsible, but stealing from posterity. i mean, i wanted to show that because not only do that have a guy masquerading as thomas jefferson , but they're masquerading the way they work.

>> i do know that alexander ha mill tonl would have said hey, this is not a time to be cutting back. but, anyway, what's the difference? the point is it's just insane to be thinking at a time of mass unemployment when the u.s. government can borrow long term at an interest rate of 2 pnt that the deficit is not our focus.

>> so the deficit is not our focus. so we should mpn't be hearing those who say we should concentrate on medicare and medicaid ?

>> right now, we need to focus on jobs. we're going to have to eventually figure out how we're going to pay for the programs that we need. medica medicare, medicaid, ssz. .

>> paul krugman , thanks for your time tonight. his book, again, is called in this depression now.

>>> ahead, elizabeth warren calls out a big bang for its dirty laundry .

>> how many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords before somebody says we're shutting you down.

>> and president obama is proud of the violence against women 's act. and so are some of the republicans who opposed it. they're actually taking credit