"How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America" (Atlantic Magazine)

[KoKo]

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America





Image credit: Fredrik Broden

How should we characterize the economic period we have now entered? After nearly two brutal years, the Great Recession appears to be over, at least technically. Yet a return to normalcy seems far off. By some measures, each recession since the 1980s has retreated more slowly than the one before it. In one sense, we never fully recovered from the last one, in 2001: the share of the civilian population with a job never returned to its previous peak before this downturn began, and incomes were stagnant throughout the decade. Still, the weakness that lingered through much of the 2000s shouldn’t be confused with the trauma of the past two years, a trauma that will remain heavy for quite some time.

-snip-


There is unemployment, a brief and relatively routine transitional state that results from the rise and fall of companies in any economy, and there is unemployment—chronic, all-consuming. The former is a necessary lubricant in any engine of economic growth. The latter is a pestilence that slowly eats away at people, families, and, if it spreads widely enough, the fabric of society. Indeed, history suggests that it is perhaps society’s most noxious ill.

The Long Road Ahead

Since last spring, when fears of economic apocalypse began to ebb, we’ve been treated to an alphabet soup of predictions about the recovery. Various economists have suggested that it might look like a V (a strong and rapid rebound), a U (slower), a W (reflecting the possibility of a double-dip recession), or, most alarming, an L (no recovery in demand or jobs for years: a lost decade). This summer, with all the good letters already taken, the former labor secretary Robert Reich wrote on his blog that the recovery might actually be shaped like an X (the imagery is elusive, but Reich’s argument was that there can be no recovery until we find an entirely new model of economic growth).

No one knows what shape the recovery will take. The economy grew at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the third quarter of last year, the first increase since the second quarter of 2008. If economic growth continues to pick up, substantial job growth will eventually follow. But there are many reasons to doubt the durability of the economic turnaround, and the speed with which jobs will return.

Historically, financial crises have spawned long periods of economic malaise, and this crisis, so far, has been true to form. Despite the bailouts, many banks’ balance sheets remain weak; more than 140 banks failed in 2009. As a result, banks have kept lending standards tight, frustrating the efforts of small businesses—which have accounted for almost half of all job losses—to invest or rehire. Exports seem unlikely to provide much of a boost; although China, India, Brazil, and some other emerging markets are growing quickly again, Europe and Japan—both major markets for U.S. exports—remain weak. And in any case, exports make up only about 13 percent of total U.S. production; even if they were to grow quickly, the impact would be muted.

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Much more of this article...that (Sadly) I think was written by a THINK TANK. Still there's some interesting tidbits there..in the first part...more at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future

[ixion]

1. the article lost me with the "Great Recession is over" meme

because I don't believe we've even gotten started yet.

[HeresyLives]

2. That's what the article is about.

[ixion]

4. yeah, my bad...

that's what I get for commenting on the synopsis. :)

[rockymountaindem]

3. Read the whole thing. That's not what it's about at all

It's some really scary stuff.

[ixion]

5. yeah, definitely

should have read it before posting the first comment. :hi:

[madrchsod]

6. i read this earlier today.....

since i`ve been through three of these "recessions" i really am afraid for my children, grandchildren, and this country.

[amandabeech]

7. Somebody send this in an e-mail blast to the White House and Congress.

The article reviews numerous scholarly studies that show that long-term joblessness and downward economic drift bring social catastrophe, and that we are running the risk of a huge breakdown in our national society.

This article is the best exposition of what I have been trying to talk about since the 1970s.

A job is worth more than the money. It is key to the mental and physical health of the individual, the family, society and the nation as a whole.

Obviously, no one in the Obama administration has even the slightest clue about this subject or else the focus of the administration would not be where it is: on health care.

Please post this in GD, but I'd suggest using the last four paragraphs of the article.

[carla]

10. I worked a full career, 25 years,

and realized TOO LATE (or nearly) that jobs are fine if you want a relatively stable life, but using what one earns to build an exit strategy out of employment-based economy and into a sustainable and largely self-controlled economy is a better way to live.
I urge younger people to consider a return to the land and to farming. I don't mean intensive agriculture, I speak of family farms/hobby farms. Most of us only know of a money-based reward system, but life offers many other rewards.
Perhaps we shouldn't spend on gadgets; investing in the future makes more sense (and the future is always personal).

[tonysam]

12. Pie in the sky by-and-by nonsense. Who in the heck has the money or the desire

to live off the land? My God, this isn't the 1960s and the hippie era.

I didn't care for the article because it said the same garbage about retraining and all of that other shit. It refuses to place the blame where it squarely belongs, and that's on our elected officials in Washington which created the class war by the few against everyone else.

Read the three Barlett and Steele books from the 1990s: America: What Went Wrong; America: Who Really Pays the Taxes, and America: Who Stole the Dream. Those books are still pertinent today.

We need to reverse thirty years of economic policies, and it CAN be done IF we elect people who actually represent the voters and not the special interests.

The Atlantic article is typical bullshit which says we have to face the fact we must have declining expectations, retrain, retrain, and retrain, the jobs aren't coming back, and all of that other hogwash.

[RainDog]

16. most macmansions have enough land for a family to live off of

so, no it's not "pie in the sky" hippie talk. It's more like "victory garden" in the great depression talk...when deciding to spend money on food, it's far, far cheaper to grow your own.

those macmansions would be better off not putting stupid chemicals on their lawns to keep weeds out of grasses, putting crap into the air mowing those useless lawns and instead plant fruit trees and bushes as landscaping, putting in a veggie garden - that way they make a positive contribution rather than treating the land on which their houses sit as chemical garbage dumps that seep into ground water.

since cos that are manufacturing windmills for farms, etc. are sending those jobs overseas, along with most all other manufacturing over the last two decades... where are the new jobs for blue collar workers? wal mart and mcdonalds.

[KoKo]

11. Thanks for reading the whole article...it's definitely

a disturbing one for those who have been through these cycles and worried about their kids.

Thanks. :hi:

[KoKo]

13. If you, posted it, using the latt three paragraphs it might get some attention...

and I hope you will. It's Friday night and many some folks would read it there. I would hope so, anyway. Please post!

[lunasun]

8. Long, but good article in The Atlantic link

A lot to digest but all interesting some frightening

[hay rick]

9. Dream careers.

Interesting article. The part about young adults having a sense of entitlement and many 18-year-olds still thinking in terms of glamorous careers reminded me of something I saw a couple weeks ago. I walked into a Kiddie Academy and they had half a dozen Martin Luther King-inspired "what I dream of doing when I grow up" papers on display. The career choices in childish scrawl: doctor, dancer, ballerina, football player and...roller skater!!! In fact, the roller skating career got picked twice- which tells me that at least one kid has figured out at an early age that it's easier to just copy off somebody else.

[KoKo]

14. Aim High...but keep aspirations in perspective. Not a bad way to go along in the coming

years. And, maybe our choices will be more limited but some will find more ways to happiness than the Wall Street Greed Driven stuff we've lived through now for a coupld of decades. We have to hope that each generation will pick up what happened before and be "smarter" in the choices ...being more savvy.

My hope...anyway. :shrug:

[grasswire]

18. two young adults I know

He's 18, taking a "gap year" to travel before going to university to study history. He saved several thousand bucks for the travel, and plans to get a student loan for college. I don't know how he will be able to use his history degree in a jobless recession.

She's 17, "home-schooled" because she was flunking out of high school because the social whirl was too distracting and exciting. She wants to go to community college and be a writer. I suggested that she might study commercial baking too, for a trade -- it certainly is easier to get paid to bake than to write.

[KG]

15. it may be a good thing people bought so many macmansions during the boom, plenty of room

since their kids may never be able to move out.

[winyanstaz]

17. So many lives ruined, so many homes lost...so many hurt...

I think we do need a new direction in how we do things and it has to be one that helps the planet and people as well at the same time.

We need jobs today!

We must give Obama a chance to make the jobs come back but at the same time we must hold him to the Constitution...along with the rest of them.

By them I mean both the Republicans and the Democrats and even the slime in between the cracks like old Joe.