Business Press Gets Nasty as Economy Worsens

[Better Believe It]

Business Press Gets Nasty as Economy Worsens
by Zach Carter
Zach Carter is AlterNet's economics editor. He is a fellow at Campaign for America's Future, and a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine.
September 14, 2010

The economy is terrible. Jobs are nowhere to be found. Wall Street bonuses are through the roof. But mainstream business journalism is still praising the con-men who created this mess, yet attacking anybody who takes real solutions—like government spending to create jobs—seriously.

Whatever corporate journalists say, the American economy will not recover until policymakers and the media acknowledge the mistakes of the past and move forward with a new economic agenda focused on middle-class prosperity, rather than financial evisceration by elites.

As Annie Lowrey notes for The Washington Independent, while President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package has dramatically slowed the pace of job losses, it hasn’t been enough to make a serious dent in the unemployment rate, which currently stands at 9.6 percent. Without a serious new set of stimulus measures, we’ll see that rate stay near double-digits for years to come.

We need a robust government plan to create jobs, which means lots of spending for government hiring, expanded benefits for the unemployed, and robust government investments in the national infrastructure. All of these things will cost money, but if we don’t put people back to work, the resulting lack of economic growth will make the federal budget deficit far worse than the jobs spending will.

Helping the middle class isn’t “antibusiness,” it’s common-sense economics. If all of our economic policies are geared toward throwing money at the rich, we’ll just watch rich people hoard most of that money. Repairing our economy requires repairing the middle class. That means lots of jobs—and in a deep recession, only the government can provide those jobs.

Read the full article at:

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/09/14/business-press-gets-nasty-as-economy-worsens/

[Vincardog]

1. The real unemployment rate is at least 16% How much do we have to give the rich to get our crumbs?

[blurp]

2. Unemployed for over a year. Losing faith.

[Starry Messenger]

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