Saturday, January 29, 2011

Just So We're Clear

I see the most fundamental cause of the continuing economic crisis as this: purchasing power (in the form of the median household income) hasn't been growing fast enough for the last 30 years to support economic growth.

Our Reptilian Corporate Masters came up with what they thought was a great substitute: encouraging the people who weren't getting raises to take on more and more and more debt - either the usual way (credit cards) or by encouraging them to pull hallucinated "equity" out of their inflated houses.

Now that hallucinated "wealth" is gone, the credit cards are maxed, and, since no one's gotten a raise for the last 30 years, there is nothing to support economic growth in the country. At all (exports? not when a billion Chinese will work for a fraction of a living wage in America.)

Paul Krugman has predicted that full employment won't return until some time in 2018.

That's not a recipe for social stability - to put it very, very mildly. I fear for the country.

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