“Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.”
Is our economy really becalmed?
Were we pissing in the wind pumping trillions of dollars into the economy since 2008? Or did opening the fiscal and monetary floodgates save our asses?
Some of our asses?
A rising tide lifts all boats– great news if you got a boat.
Plumes of economic dead zones are killing our middle class as they sink beneath mortgages underwater or are thrown overboard into the whirlpools of working poor…
But somewhere in Mudville there is happiness tonite. Bank CEOs rejoice in their miserly loan policies as they amass historically enormous reserves and leave small businesses adrift. Corporate “job creators” sit in their yachts on the highest level of corporate short term assets in half a century and do little more with that money than contemplate juicy M&A targets. And all the big sharks are content to “let the market find its bottom,” i.e., fill Davey Jone’s locker with the wrecked bodies of the middle class as they slowly “deleverage” from the bait-and-switch frenzies of the mortgage lenders and wealthy tax cutters of the ’00’s.
Yeah, we primed the pump… right into the siphoning siren songs of the sultans of sweat.
O.K. so the rich got richer, nothing new there. The real question is, is it worth another go at it? Is their water in the well? Can we get the American dream pumping again?
Yes! We are almost a 15 trillion dollar economy, representing one quarter of the world’s GDP. That’s not all smoke and mirrors, folks. We lead the world in manufacturing, producing 20% of the world’s manufacturing output, more than China, India, and Brazil combined.
With the right prime we could be swimming in it…. with jobs that pay a decent wage. But it won’t come from consumer spending, and banks aren’t lending, and corporations seemed to have made a devil’s pact to wait out Obama.
Why can’t consumers pull us out like they’ve done in every other recession since WWII?
Median household income is essentially what it was thirty years ago (about 5% higher now on an inflation adjusted basis.) Household debt is twice what it was in 1982, the last great recession. With unemployment high, a quarter of all mortgages under water, and household debt maxed out there is no room for consumers to take on debt and stimulate the economy.
Perry cowed Bernake to postpone QE3 so there will be no relief from that quarter.
There’s only one lifeline.
It’s up to Obama. Aloha, man! Heh. Over here! There’s a tsunami coming. It’s called your total electoral defeat and the drowning of the social contract for generations to come. Stand up, man.
I didn’t want to believe that Clinton had sex with Monica. I didn’t want to believe that Obama couldn’t get it done. But the water’s rising and I’m starting to lose hope.
(And by the way, where the hell are all or any other voices in the so-called Democrat “party”?)
Around the Corner if Obama milquetoasts next Thursday: He loses. The Democrats lose a generation. 12-16% effective structural unemployment becomes the norm, 40% working poor, safety net abolished, perpetual war, strong stock market.
Postscript. This isn’t even about being a liberal or a Democrat. It is about there being reasoned and passionate debate in our political forums of which I see none and the paucity of this dialogue dooms us.
