Department of "Huh?!"

Oh no, no, no, no, no. The Wall Street Journal news pages used to be better than this.

Michael Derby's headline is:

Jobs Data Provide Fodder to Both Sides of QE2 Debate

And the article begins:

The surprisingly weak state of the jobs market in November provides fodder to both sides of the debate over the potency of the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program.

Supporters of the current state of Fed policy will see in November jobs a clear rationale for the Fed to employ whatever tools it has to fix a terrible jobs market. Core central bankers were already confident the policy will help, although even the strongest advocates of the action do not expect it to push through a huge surge in activity.... On Friday, Ellen Beeson Zentner of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi called the jobs data “atrocious,” and said it “legitimizes the Fed’s extreme measures to get the economy moving. Is anyone going to question their methods after this report?”

The answer is yes, and one need not even go outside the walls of the Fed to find an opponent to the current course of monetary policy. On Thursday, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser, who will hold a voting role on the interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee next year, said in a speech, “I am still somewhat skeptical that we will see much of a stimulative effect from the new round of purchases.” He added, “It is not clear to me that a further reduction in long-term interest rates will do much to speed up the reduction in the unemployment rate to more acceptable levels”...

Plosser gave his speech on Thursday. The employment release came on Friday. Plosser gave his talk before the jobs data for November were released. The surprisingly weak state of the jobs market in November" provided no fodder at all for Plosser because he did not know about it. Not surprisingly, Plosser did not say that the Friday release made him more confident in his point of view that the benefit-cost ratio of QE II is too low for it to be worth doing.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?