WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at a much slower pace this spring than previously estimated, mostly due to the largest surge in imports in 26 years and a slowdown in companies’ restocking of goods.
Can the average American even come up with an accurate definition of our economic condition? Are we in a “Recession” or a “Depression?” What is the difference? Who can tell us? None of the Political Talking Heads are telling for one simple reason: There is not a universally agreed upon definition of the term “Economic Depression”. If you ask 100 different economists to define the terms recession and depression, you would get at least 100 different answers.
The renowned financial publication The Economist reports that, based on the characteristics of the current financial crisis, the U.S. is in a depression, not a recession. The Economist says a “Depression” …… “is the result of a bursting asset and credit bubble, a contraction in credit, and a decline in the general price level.”
The standard newspaper definition of a “Recession” is a decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters. This definition is unpopular with most economists as it does not take into account the changes in the unemployment rate or consumer confidence.
So after reading and hearing all this economic analysis mumbo-jumbo in the news for the past three years, trying to find out when our economy will improve, and realizing that we’re entering into our 3rd year of this economic freefall, I find myself asking “When will it all end? When will things begin to improve?” I remember in early 2008 the Talking Heads were telling us we would see significant improvement in our economy in the later half of that year. However, since then things have only become worse.
Now I’ve decided to take a look at the situation through my own eyes, activate a little common sense, and come up with my own analysis. The facts and findings I came up with are really quite simple:
1. In the United States over 2.5 million homes have been foreclosed on since this current economic condition began in 2007. That’s more than 3 times as many as were foreclosed on during the Great Depression of the 1930′s. The Talking Head’s officially state that the United States has a current 9.6% unemployment rate. I find it interesting that this “released figure” has always held itself steady for the past 3 years at just under 10%. The Talking Heads know that if a 10% or more figure is announced, it would undoubtedly cause uneasiness and perhaps pandemonium amongst the minions.
But realistically, this fictitious unemployment rate doesn’t include the millions of independent contractors and self employed Americans who have gone belly up or the millions of Americans who have exhausted their unemployment benefits; those who have fallen out into the streets only to be stepped over and forgotten. And it certainly doesn’t take into account the tens of millions of Americans who are now grossly under-employed, having lost their $50,000.00+/yr. career jobs and have now taken on menial jobs at places like Burger King and Walmart for minimum wage in order to survive, but certainly not earning enough to keep their homes from foreclosure. The Talking Heads don’t include these groups. But if they were factored into the whole unemployment equation, the U.S. unemployment rate would be closer to 25%!
Most Americans have never seen a time of such economic turmoil – and those who have, have only the Great Depression of the 1930′s to compare it to. The rich don’t really care because for most of them, life rolls merrily along under their protective glass bubbles that their disturbing wealth easily affords them.
America has seen several bad economic recessions since the 1930′s but none has ever resulted in an unprecedented 2.5 million home foreclosures and an actual 2 year sustaining unemployment rate of close to 25%, sending the net worth of just about every American imploding. So, is this a recession or a depression? No, this is not a recession. For the past several years we have been living through The Great American Depression II!
But the question remains. WHY is our economy NOT getting better? Is there hope? Can we ever come out of this? My answer: Yes, and yes.
Published economist reports for the past two years have been predicting an economic turnaround “very soon”, usually termed as “later this year” based on their latest findings and predictions. With most of us not being economists and not fully understanding the inner workings of why our economy crashed to begin with, we take these words of false hope and put faith in them.
But from a common sense approach, anyone can understand that the economy will improve once people get back to work again; when they are gainfully employed. We are all waiting for that day to come. But my question is, where will these jobs come from? Most of the lost jobs in this country didn’t happen due to “temporary layoffs”. They occurred due to thousands of American companies, mainly manufacturing companies, closing down permanently.
98 out of 100 of the top U.S. markets posted declines in manufacturing jobs over the past decade.
It wasn’t long ago that every city in America housed manufacturing plants that supplied thousands of jobs for the community. Today, however, almost every one of these factories have been closed due to American corporate giants outsourcing their production to overseas manufacturing plants, most notably, China.
In China, workers get paid a fraction of what American workers get (or got). So simple math spells out huge profits for corporate giants like Walmart, Target, et al. As American corporate greed accelerates, more manufacturing jobs continue to go overseas and more and more American factories are closing, permanently laying off millions of workers. 3.5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost this decade! Where will all of these laid off workers go back to work when this recession/depression ends?
I’m told that the job market is shifting now with the computer age. We are all told that standard manufacturing jobs are being replaced with new high tech jobs. So everyone is waiting for these new jobs to appear. But again, my common sense tells me that in order for these new high tech jobs to materialize, there must be a demand for the technology, the software and the computers. And I’m not talking about PC’s. The type of tech jobs that are mentioned are jobs that huge corporations will offer in helping run big business including manufacturing factories. However, there ARE no more factories! There is no demand for high tech computer systems, therefore there will be little, if any, high tech jobs to replace the lost manufacturing jobs!
The jobs aren’t coming back
Americans still believe that this is an ordinary recession and things will improve — it is a Depression that has not been publicly recognized by the people in power. There is still faith in capitalism as an economic system. Yet, tools which have worked in the past, like low interest rates, are no longer working. Low interest rates are helping mega banks that can borrow for 0% but are devastating to ordinary Americans who are penalized for any savings.
Obama has declared many times that things are improving, when they are not, which makes him economically impotent and unable to lead. He will certainly lose re-election and be replaced with another GOP clown — probably Jeb Bush.
Workers need aggressive collective bargaining but almost no progress is being made. America has a crushing and accelerating national debt. Corporations control the government and elections making reform impossible. And the reason it will be a long time before things begin to get better (if ever) is because there are still too many people who are doing ok and are not worried about the people who are not; eventually, everybody will be worried about the people who are suffering.
Our only hope:
The only way to get American workers back to work is to have jobs for them. Jobs are becoming fewer and fewer with each passing month. And as long as all of our jobs have been taken from us and given to other countries, things cannot improve! The only way to reestablish our employment standard is to stop the corporate greed and return the manufacturing jobs back into this country. How can that happen? Perhaps the only way is to get the political jackasses to impose heavy tariffs on all imported goods. Such heavy tariffs would require retail giants such as Wal-Mart to pay heavily to get their cheap slave labor goods into this country, the same way we all have to pay tariffs (or duty) taxes on goods and gifts we buy overseas when we’re on vacation and want to bring them home with us.
Every product that is imported for the infrastructure project means a watering down of the stimulus impact of the dollars spent. You can’t put people to work in American factories that don’t exist. A true national recovery effort would mean re-industrialization, on a grand scale and a green model, through massive direct federal creation of state-owned industries independent of the finance capitalists who murdered American manufacturing and then blew up their own businesses on Wall Street.
But this is already nearly impossible, since the political forces have been committed to saving the banking class through unlimited infusions of public money, and then allowing these reborn zombies to resume their roles as lords of development. The bankster parasites have neither the capacity nor the intention to build anything other than mountains of debt for the rest of us. Therefore, the political forces’ partnership with them spells doom for national recovery.
It must be made clear to these greedy bastards, “If you want to forsake the American workforce for your own personal gain, then a heavy price will be imposed in order for you to bring the slave labor goods into this country”. If the tariffs are imposed, the greedy corporations would no longer have incentive to have their goods manufactured overseas. The outcome would result in American manufacturing becoming more economical again. The American factories could re-open and the millions of laid-off manufacturing workers could go back to work and become prosperous again.
Americans need to vote out the current self-serving political Talking Heads who simply don’t care about the masses of unemployed people in this country. We need to elect or appoint a completely new breed of leaders who are aware of the problem and are competent enough to do what it will take to correct it! This is a common sense issue people! Greedy American corporations AND our own greedy political leaders have sold out the heart and soul of America, which was our industrial infrastructure, for their own personal gain! We need a new breed of leaders to reverse this soon or our economy and our once great country will fail!