But isn’t the economy growing again – by an estimated 2.5 to 2.9 percent this year? Yes, but that’s even less than peanuts. The deeper the economic hole, the faster the growth needed to get back on track. By this point in the so-called recovery we’d expect growth of 4 to 6 percent.
Consider that back in 1934, when it was emerging from the deepest hole of the Great Depression, the economy grew 7.7 percent. The next year it grew over 8 percent. In 1936 it grew a whopping 14.1 percent.Add two other ominous signs: Real hourly wages continue to fall, and housing prices continue to drop. Hourly wages are falling because with unemployment so high, most people have no bargaining power and will take whatever they can get. Housing is dropping because of the ever-larger number of homes people have walked away from because they can’t pay their mortgages. But because homes the biggest asset most Americans own, as home prices drop most Americans feel even poorer.
We must begin to differentiate between the 'wannna be" terrorists, and "real" terrorists that are destroying this nation and the world. Even an idiot can comprehend the simple math that when 2% own 98% of the world's wealth and resources and pay no taxes, the other 7 billion people, their cities, governments, schools, infrastructure are being economically strangled to death by the ever-tightening noose designed in the Corporate Business, Banking and Wall Street Model. Those left working are paid to Serve this Dragon eating its own tail, albeit with continuously lowering wage standards, benefits, rising retirement age, with increasing slavelike "productivity" and skyrocketing price gouging of consumer goods; while being TOLD to adapt to increasingly violent and deadly weather patterns caused by the 'no' global warming lies, all the while your Corporate Masters are flooded with daily, record breaking, obscene Profits.
SOP, standard operating procedure, what kind of Monster would take over a life saving drug segment, costing pennies to produce, with a previous monthly consumer cost of $30.00, and now charge $6,000.00 per month?
If you listen hard enough, you can hear screaming in the distance, from both Al Capone and Hitler, who ran out of their graves in horror, shock and shame for having accomplished so little in comparison: IN AN AGE OF SCIENTIFIC MARVELS, THE LAST 50 YEARS CAUSING THE SLOW MURDER DEATH OF BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS OF PEOPLE THROUGH STARVATION, POVERTY, DISEASE, LACK OF WATER, SANITATION, MEDICAL...................TOPPED OFF WITH A STRANGLEHOLD ON ENERGY EVOLUTION.
If you really believe science is so stupid as to remain stuck in oil, or play Tweedledee winks with wind, solar, and deadly nuclear waste ............ THEN LET ME SELL YOU SOME SWAMPLAND, while you listen to the business news daily telling you the NEW AMERICAN DREAM is to be a renter subjugated to your landlord. 30 years ago, it was said, FREEDUMB is DEADLY.
It is high time to review why Dr. Stanley Milgram did his infamous experiment, "Study in Obedience, May we choose not to become agents in a terribly destructive process" http://www.relaxspa.net/Revisiting_Power.htm
The Awful, Unsaid Truth: We’re Heading Back Toward a Double Dip - Common Dreams
The Awful, Unsaid Truth: We’re Heading Back Toward a Double Dip | Common Dreams Published on Thursday, March 31, 2011 by RobertReich.org
The Truth About the Economy that Nobody In Washington Or On Wall Street Will Admit by Robert Reich
Why aren’t Americans being told the truth about the economy? We’re heading in the direction of a double dip – but you’d never know it if you listened to the upbeat messages coming out of Wall Street and Washington.
Consumers are 70 percent of the American economy, and consumer confidence is plummeting. It’s weaker today on average than at the lowest point of the Great Recession.
The Reuters/University of Michigan survey shows a 10 point decline in March – the tenth largest drop on record. Part of that drop is attributable to rising fuel and food prices. A separate Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence, just released, shows consumer confidence at a five-month low — and a large part is due to expectations of fewer jobs and lower wages in the months ahead.
Pessimistic consumers buy less. And fewer sales spells economic trouble ahead.
What about the 192,000 jobs added in February? (We’ll know more Friday about how many jobs were added in March.) It’s peanuts compared to what’s needed. Remember, 125,000 new jobs are necessary just to keep up with a growing number of Americans eligible for employment. And the nation has lost so many jobs over the last three years that even at a rate of 200,000 a month we wouldn’t get back to 6 percent unemployment until 2016.
But isn’t the economy growing again – by an estimated 2.5 to 2.9 percent this year? Yes, but that’s even less than peanuts. The deeper the economic hole, the faster the growth needed to get back on track. By this point in the so-called recovery we’d expect growth of 4 to 6 percent.
Consider that back in 1934, when it was emerging from the deepest hole of the Great Depression, the economy grew 7.7 percent. The next year it grew over 8 percent. In 1936 it grew a whopping 14.1 percent.
Add two other ominous signs: Real hourly wages continue to fall, and housing prices continue to drop. Hourly wages are falling because with unemployment so high, most people have no bargaining power and will take whatever they can get. Housing is dropping because of the ever-larger number of homes people have walked away from because they can’t pay their mortgages. But because homes the biggest asset most Americans own, as home prices drop most Americans feel even poorer.
There’s no possibility government will make up for the coming shortfall in consumer spending. To the contrary, government is worsening the situation. State and local governments are slashing their budgets by roughly $110 billion this year. The federal stimulus is ending, and the federal government will end up cutting some $30 billion from this year’s budget.
In other words: Watch out. We may avoid a double dip but the economy is slowing ominously, and the booster rockets are disappearing.
So why aren’t we getting the truth about the economy? For one thing, Wall Street is buoyant – and most financial news you hear comes from the Street. Wall Street profits soared to $426.5 billion last quarter, according to the Commerce Department. (That gain more than offset a drop in the profits of non-financial domestic companies.) Anyone who believes the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill put a stop to the Street’s creativity hasn’t been watching.
To the extent non-financial companies are doing well, they’re making most of their money abroad. Since 1992, for example, G.E.’s offshore profits have risen $92 billion, from $15 billion (which is one reason it pays no U.S. taxes). In fact, the only group that’s optimistic about the future are CEOs of big American companies. The Business Roundtable’s economic outlook index, which surveys 142 CEOs, is now at its highest point since it began in 2002.
Washington, meanwhile, doesn’t want to sound the economic alarm. The White House and most Democrats want Americans to believe the economy is on an upswing.
Republicans, for their part, worry that if they tell it like it is Americans will want government to do more rather than less. They’d rather not talk about jobs and wages, and put the focus instead on deficit reduction (or spread the lie that by reducing the deficit we’ll get more jobs and higher wages).
I’m sorry to have to deliver the bad news, but it’s better you know.
© 2011 Robert Reich
Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.
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