Will Only Another Great Depression Save America?

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/149586/will_only_another_great_depression_save_america

The economic crisis is really a political struggle between the rich and the rest of us.


Americans are increasingly aware that the Great American Century is over. A November 2010 Rasmussen poll found that just over one-third (37 percent) of respondents believe America's best days are still ahead. Sadly, nearly half (47 percent) say the nation's best days are in the past. They wonder what will come next.

Officially, the Great Recession started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. Unofficially, the living recession grinds on with millions of Americans remaining unemployed and underemployed, millions continuing to lose their homes due to foreclosure, and millions more joining the legion of the homeless, hungry and those without health care. The U.S. is today marked by second-rate health care, educational and telecommunication systems.

The question haunting America is simple: if the American Century is over, what comes next? Will only another Great Depression save America?

The American Century was, symbolically, predicated on the Ozzie and Harriet myth of suburban home ownership; the popping of the housing bubble precipitated the Great Recession. As the myth of home ownership evaporates, the American Century ends.

In their important new book, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson paint a grim picture of the nation's present state of affairs.

MORE at the link --

[kenny blankenship]

1. They short circuited that possibility by getting all their bailouts up front