The Big Zero By PAUL KRUGMAN - "the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing."

[jefferson_dem]

The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)

But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.

It was a decade with basically zero job creation. O.K., the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.

It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.

It was a decade of zero gains for homeowners, even if they bought early: right now housing prices, adjusted for inflation, are roughly back to where they were at the beginning of the decade. And for those who bought in the decade’s middle years — when all the serious people ridiculed warnings that housing prices made no sense, that we were in the middle of a gigantic bubble — well, I feel your pain. Almost a quarter of all mortgages in America, and 45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth.

Last and least for most Americans — but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV — it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like “Dow 36,000” predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

[Laelth]

1. k&r for the truth, however depressing. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[FreakinDJ]

2. The Bush Legacy

[zbdent]

4. whaddaya expect from a C student who got into the elite college

because of his Daddy's and Grand-daddy's legacy status, and who failed in every venture his daddy's name got him, and the people who worshiped him?

[ladjf]

7. And don't forget about the ignorant idiots that elected him. nt

[zbdent]

8. said worshippers ...

of course, those who were very vocal about how you had to follow him or commit suicide now say "Oh, I'm an independent" and rely on the short term memories of the world to get away from their kool-aide drinking ...

[Kdillard]

3. Yep. It is startling how nothing was accomplished for those eight years.

[harun]

5. Conservatism at its finest. Accomplish abso-fricken-lutely-nothin!

[The_Commonist]

6. A truly shitty decade.

We might have been better off after all if that Y2K bug had killed all the computers...

[Armstead]

9. Dominated by the Biggest Zero of all -- GWB

[ProSense]

10. Bush's legacy.

It's laughable when you think about the lame attempts the GOP made to try to define Bush's legacy before he left office. They're still trying to rewrite history.

[HughBeaumont]

11. Sure wasn't a "big zero" if you were wealthy.

Funny how there is one consistent element about slightly up or phenomenally DOWN economies - wealthy people getting every bit freaking WEALTHIER no matter WHAT.

How much does one person or family NEED, anyway?

[ProgressOnTheMove]

12. Which shows just how great Obama will turn out to be as a President when the final count is in...

The jobs are returning slowly but surely. Sure we'll have a bumpy road along the way many more disagreements, but we'll come out in better place the otherside. We've just got to work for it.