Slowly at first, and then at a steadily increasing rate like a snowball rolling down a hill, the other nations catch up to the fading Empire until at last they surpass it.
and thats all in the past 5 years.... WTF...
Krugman failed to mention things like average vacation time, liberal social attitudes towards drugs (what's the cost of the War on Drugs?), excellent transportation infrastructure, and better wine!
I think Krugman could have made a much stronger statement in favor of Europe's economy than he did.
And meanwhile back in America...One thing that has kept our unemployment rate from being higher than it otherwise would have been in recent years is that a lot of jobs have either been provided directly by the Federal Government or are jobs resulting from companies contracting with the Federal Government. Which means that a lot of our recent job growth has been fueled by the massive deficit spending of recent years.
Bernanke's gonna cut rates again. That's it! MORE CHEAP MONEY!
Sad, ain't it? We're ending up where we been heading.
"Now if those great and solemn economic indicators-growth, productivity and employment rates-have become de-coupled from most people's lived experience, then there's something wrong with the economists, the economy, or both. The clue lies in the word "most." We have become so unequal as a nation that we increasingly occupy two different economies-one for the rich and one for everyone else-and the latter has been in a recession, if not a depression, for a long, long time. Not all economists can bring themselves to admit this."
Recession-Who Cares? by Barbara Ehrenreich, The Nation, Wed 9 Jan 2008
cont'd. (Sorry)
Recession-Who Cares? by Barabra Ehrenreich, The Nation, Wed 9 Jan 2008
http://www.thenation.com/doc/200...0121/
ehrenreich
The US has been hollowed out by 30 years of intensive reactionary economic polices favoring corporations and wealthy individuals at the expense of the nation and all other classes. The Vietnam defeat, its economic consequences and the Iranian humiliation enabled the Reagan administration to parlay chauvinist belligerent pandering into economic primitivism serving only its patron’s narrow interests. Subsequent administrations, including Clinton’s and especially Wastrel’s, did nothing to reverse and much to aggravate these fundamentally inequitable pathologies. No likely presidential candidate promises to reverse these ruinous policies:
"Restoring healthy communities, healthy citizens, a healthy global order, healthy local media, and a healthy sustainable economy are the key drivers of where we need to go as a country. The cancerous symptoms are all around us, and leading Democratic Presidential candidates are too corrupt and morally crippled to even begin talking about them. But we'll get there."
Five Untouchable Symptoms by Matt Stoller, Open Left, Tue 25 Dec 2007
http://openleft.com/showDiary.do...do?
diaryId=2924
We'll get there.
Loveandlight: you neglected the gameign of the unemployment numbers by jsut dropeign people offf the rolls
What Moonglum said. You are no longer "unemployed" (or never were) if you are done collecting your max bennies of 26 weeks, or if you were in a job that rendered you uneligible for unemployment in the first place. You simply don't exist.
How are prisoners counted? Do inmates either count as employed or just get left off the unemployment rolls? Seems to me the USA conspicuously IS in the lead at locking folks up, & has been for many years now. That might be slanting the statistics toward the rosy side a mite. As might a de-facto "poverty draft" be doing at this point.
MNCs just LOVE getting ever more people to do temp work on commission too: no benefits, no raises, no OT, way less labour laws, & often no office for them to buy & insure. "Get rich in your spare time! Make money from home! Ask us how!"
jim: they get left off as well..but the real killer is the 26 week adn ou are droped from the rolls folks...there are cottege industries, adn cash encomaies spring up all over thiscountry of peopel doign small cratsf adn waht not out of their garages...this is not a good thing
Moonglum,
It isn't just cottage industries--I knew people who were "freelance" at places like MTV/Viacom for years, but since they were forced to invoice their time rather than get paid wages (1099 vs. W-2), they DID NOT QUALIFY for unemployment even though they had been working fulltime for YEARS. You need W-2 wages that clock within 18 months of your first claim date in order to get unemployment bennies, and if you use up your 26 weeks, you have to do a whole calendar year before you can re-apply, and you damn better well have some NEW W-2 wages to show for it.
You wonder why really really really REALLY educated folks turn up for the odd shift at Starbuck's or the Gap? It ain't just "anything for money"--it's "anything to get those W-2 wages on the books" so that they CAN apply for unemployment again eventually.
You can be the best freelancer but if you can't work for whatever reason you are HOSED.
This is why most freelancers I know who have been through rough times drop any libertarian leanings that they have if they have lived through a rough spot. You think your hourly is great, and your accountant can help you with your taxes when BANG there you are with no income, no health insurance, and a pile of bills.
At least Bucky's gives you health insurance buy-in options if you work 10 hours a week or more. When I lived in Brooklyn Heights a zillion years ago, one of the shift managers was an out-of-work academic who really was just there for the W-2s and the health bennies.
Actually moonglum the cottage industries may be a good thing in disguise, depending on how the deal goes down. Cash economy keeps credit card vultures out of the loop, people learn to create things in the US rather than getting them from China, keeps large corporations out of the loop, etc. This may be part of the solution, who can say?
oh, and don't forget that they are doing all that AND they have health care.
Re: The Wanderer
The fuck you mean "catching up"?
Seen any french, german, dutch, english, spanish (from Spain...) immigrants here lately?
Thanks for the reminder, moonglum. And that's a pretty good trick too, because pretty much everyone will stop looking for jobs once the realize that there are no jobs out there for them, no matter how much personality-disordered family-members might nag at them about it.
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