Hiding from Reality

[Beacool]

By BOB HERBERT
November 19, 2010

However you want to define the American dream, there is not much of it that’s left anymore.

Wherever you choose to look — at the economy and jobs, the public schools, the budget deficits, the nonstop warfare overseas — you’ll see a country in sad shape. Standards of living are declining, and American parents increasingly believe that their children will inherit a very bad deal.

We’re in denial about the extent of the rot in the system, and the effort that would be required to turn things around. It will likely take many years, perhaps a decade or more, to get employment back to a level at which one could fairly say the economy is thriving.

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The human suffering in the years required to recover from the recession will continue to be immense. And that suffering will only be made worse if the nation embarks on a misguided crash program of deficit reduction that in the short term will undermine any recovery, and in the long term will make true deficit reduction that much harder to achieve.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/opinion/20herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Pretty depressing outlook. Sometimes I feel that we are being played by both parties, that we are just pawns in a reality show that has turned macabre.

:(

[Orrex]

1. The recession would completely disappear by Wednesday if we taxed the rich at a fair rate

And if we cut the military budget by 40% or 50%, the recession would end by Monday.

[Beacool]

4. I think that just taxing the rich and ending the wars wouldn't be enough.

It would help, but it wouldn't produce any more jobs than we currently have at the moment. It may actually cut jobs since keeping the war machine going is one area where jobs are plenty. What we need is job creation in what used to be typical middle class areas. The jobs that are being created are in the lower economic rungs that cannot be outsourced (retail, waiters, etc.).

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. I find it amusing that some CEO's consider themselves worth hundreds

of times more than a worker who puts out 100 times the effort.

[Beacool]

10. Isn't it disgusting?

I read somewhere that in the early 60s the CEO used to make between 30 to 35 times more than the lowest paid employee. The ratio now on average is between 300 to 500 times more.

Sickening......

:-(

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. One CEO's salary could support an entire third world nation, now that's

something to think about.

[Orrex]

19. Yeah, but then how would that poor CEO get by?

Won't someone think of the CEO's?!?

[Orrex]

16. Well, you're right about the jobs

But if those taxes suddenly went toward funding infrastructure and education and healthcare and the running of government, we could buy back a lot of foreign-owned debt and work toward greatly strengthening the dollar.

It wouldn't magically create more jobs, but it would drive the wolf away from the doors of millions of families in the country, which would be a worthy end itself.

[Beacool]

23. If it went into infrastructure, then it would produce jobs.

Lord knows that the infrastructure in this country is in a decrepit state, far behind the top industrialized nations. The problem with strengthening the dollar is that it raises the price of our goods. One reason why the Feds flooded the market with 600B and why Obama was recently chided for it. How can we ask the Europeans to chastise China for their currency manipulation when we just did pretty much the same. It was very poor timing.

[Orrex]

24. Yeah, I kind of wondered about that

This is a good example of context-dependent thinking.

As I was filling my tank this morning @ 2.99 per gallon, I remembered the not-so-secret rule that governs the price of gas:

When oil prices go up, gas prices go up.
When oil prices go down, gas prices go up.
When oil prices stay the same, gas prices go up.

For several years I've heard the blame applied to the weak dollar, so it seemed to me that a stronger dollar would, if nothing else, remove that justification for ever-rising oil prices. And I reasoned by extension (perhaps with poor justification) that lower oil prices would apply a downward pressure on other commodity prices whose increase has been explained on the basis that higher fuel prices force the price of the item to rise.

Of course, that leaves out the fact of sticky pricing, so even if oil fell to $30/barrel I'm sure the manufacturers would find some way to keep the allegedly-oil-driven prices at their higher levels.


And you're right about the infrastructure.

Incidentally, in my small community I count no fewer than five bridges and more than 20 miles of roadway completely refurbished thanks to the stimulus package, yet my county still votes red (and voted red on the 4th) because Obama is a socialist.

[RufusTFirefly]

20. Green jobs would help a great deal to boost employment

But, of course, they were advocated by Van Jones, victim of a Faux News character assassination, which means we can no longer discuss them anymore.

[Beacool]

22. The WH shouldn't have gotten rid of him.

They give FOX more importance than they are worth.

:eyes:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

3. This has been going on for decades. A lot more needs to be done to

reverse the trend. Notice that the minimum wage adjusted for inflation is at the highest it has ever been in more than 20 years (blame Reagan), but it's still lower than it was in 1968.

[Beacool]

5. Yes, the problem has been going on for many years.

It has come to a head now, but the start of the economic decline can be traced to past decades. The problem now is how to solve it. My brother thinks that it will take the US at least another 10 years or more to have unemployment rates at the prior to September 2007 rate. My brother is an economist for France & Spain and spends most of his time in Brussels (where the headquarters of the European Economic Council is located). He thought that the US stimulus was too small to make a lasting effect.

[Demoiselle]

7. Ronald Reagan declared war on the middle class in 1980.

The right wing rich have been waging it ever since. An enormous amount of money and propaganda has gone into it. And now we're faced with a citizenry that habitually votes against its own best interests.
Uh, yeah, I'm depressed. And so is Bob Herbert.

[Beacool]

11. I've been depressed about it for the last 3 years.

We keep going down a slippery slope and the question is when will we stop falling. So many people are already beyond despair.

;(

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Yes, the stimulus was too small.

One can argue about whether a larger stimulus would have been politically feasible, and one can argue about whether it was used in the wisest way. Personally, as a non-economist, I suspect that getting us out of the wars, stopping the tax cut for the top 2% (I could in fact go along with letting ALL tax cuts expire), and a "stimulus package" that makes a massive commitment of resources to building a green infrastructure and the re-establishment of the New Deal/Fair Deal/New Frontier safety nets would build us a path out of the economic problems of the present.

[Beacool]

12. Good points.

A larger stimulus may not have been politically feasible, but there's little doubt that the money could have been used to better effect. The one area that it did help was in preserving the jobs of police, firefighters, teachers and keeping local governments running; but there is little indication that it created permanent well paying new jobs.

Stopping all tax cuts and ending the wars will aid in deficit reduction, but if we don't have an expansive and comprehensive job plan at the national level, how will this create jobs?

[Autumn]

14. I don't think that it created permanent jobs either, but I know that

it did save jobs for some people here in CO. I don't see them doing anything to create jobs, especially now.

[Autumn]

9. It's very depressing, and I just don't see

it changing anytime soon.

[Beacool]

13. Me neither..........

:-(

[TobileStack]

15. .

I keep repeating the phrase "it's always darkest before the dawn," but it's I agree, it's hard to have too much hope at the moment :(

[StarsInHerHair]

18. SOMETIMES you feel both parties are playing u? I feel that way

all the time.

[Beacool]

21. Yeah, well...........

I know what you mean.

;(

[paulk]

25. ever since the stolen election in 2000

I feel like I've been living in one of those alternate history science fiction novels...

[DemocraticPilgrim]

26. Great thing we have Obama in charge than Republicans then as we could make that 2 decades before the

economy thrives. I think people should recognize the generations of suffering of African americans and realize a decade is a short time in the big picture.