Try to wrap your mind around 10 straight months of job losses, topped off by 240,000 in October, adding up to an official count of 1.2 million for the year — shattering bad-news records going back to the early 1980s.
But the reality is much worse, because those who don’t qualify for unemployment or who have exhausted their unemployment benefits aren’t counted.
And then, as has been the case increasingly over the past 15 years, you have large, uncounted numbers of people early retired from better-paying jobs into unexpectedly limited retirement incomes with DIY benefits and scant job opportunities, if any.
Yesterday, we learned October retail sales were the worst for any October in 40 years.
All this as food, energy and health care costs have pushed relentlessly upward, far outstripping pay increases for most working people.
Add up all the fixed-income folks looking to underwater investments to keep themselves afloat, people out of work and out of benefits, people struggling on one or two part-time jobs with no future and no security, small businesses hurting and teetering on the brink, and you have many millions of unhappy campers.
Eight years of bad ideology powering stupid economic policies, encouraging and enabling the worst kind of excesses of greed and selfishness, do come at a high price.
But not for everyone.
If your blood pressure can stand any more, check out the post below.
“It’s sinking in, belatedly, that the U.S. economy has been hijacked by wealthy, powerful hustlers for their own benefit.”
I think you’re sure right about that, S.W. Paul Krugman certainly was right about it, way back in 2001-2002. If right-wingers were to read Krugman’s “The Great Unraveling”, they would see that he was either onto Bush’s game way before most of the rest of us, or that he at least that knew what we knew but was able to more fully articulate it than most of us could. The likelihood that right wing voters will read that book is minimal, because 1) he is an unabashed liberal, 2) he is another liberal Nobel winner, and 3) both conditions, when manipulated by right wing pundits, generate anger and jealousy in right wing viewers/listeners/voters.
“The religious right and social conservatives served as enablers.”
You are right again. I still cannot see how the Republican party is able to hold itself together, how such disparate philosophies can co-exist as peacefully as they do. It seems to be a marriage of convenience between fiscals and socials, with each group using the relationship to advance their own agendas… but with people who are neither genuine fiscals or socials pulling all the puppet strings!
How angry will right wing voters get when they begin to learn the extent to which they have been used to advance the pet goals and projects of a very few wealthy individuals? If they want to start learning more, “The Great Unraveling” is a good place to begin. “American Theocracy” by Kevin Phillips is also very helpful.
For left wingers who want to learn more about how conservatives think, I recommend trying George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant”. It’s a quick read, and it’s an eye-opener!
snave, thanks for that thoughtful, informative comment. I’m not familiar with Krugman’s “Unraveling,” but maybe I’ll get hold of it when I have some more time. I did read Phillips’ “American Theocracy,” although it took awhile. Great book. I’m thinking about tackling his latest. And now, maybe Lakoff’s also.
Great comments Snave, I do not know what you all think of Greg Palast, but what he wrote in “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” was the blue print to what we were going to be getting from Bush.
I would like to think that the right would be mad when they see exactly what has happened, but I cannot see most of them doing that when they have their ears open only to the conservative talk shows and Fox.
>>>>It’s sinking in, belatedly, that the U.S. economy has been hijacked by wealthy, powerful hustlers for their own benefit.
True hustlers don’t skin the mark completely: they let him win enough to keep him coming back.
If the wealthy hustlers overplayed their hand by, say, overpricing credit default swaps, they were helped along by middle class hustlers who turned back that second house instead of making the payments that gave value to the CDS.
Let’s give the mirror its share of the blame. Left wing blogs clamor endlessly for more government payments, which require more economic activity, which requires easier money, which requires a place for this money, which requires people to take more and more risk, which if mismanaged gives us, oops, what we have now.
>>>>The religious right and social conservatives served as enablers.
What a laugher. Let’s just pile all the blame on our political opponents, never minding that the religious right is generally fiscally conservative, pays their bills, and takes fewer economic risks than other groups. I don’t know how you tie social conservatives into all this. Maybe I need to read Paul Krugman to find out.
BTW, I’ve read Krugman. He is about half right.
Fred is right, particularly if he’s talking about Mormons (LDS). I have never seen a group of people united in their faith who are as fiscally responsible. I live in a heavily LDS area, and I admire them very much. McCain would have been far more successful had he picked Mitt Romney as his running mate (thus I am happy he didn’t pick Romney!)
“Red states” doesn’t necessarily = the reigious right, but I believe I have read or heard statistics which show those states tend to have higher crime rates and divorce rates. I think that kind of thing is worth looking up, as it’s hard to argue with numbers. It would be interesting to look at teen pregnancy rates as well.
I believe Richard M. Nixon once said ”Television is to news as bumperstickers are to philosophy”. Nixon got it right once in a while. Just the same, a few of my favorite bumper stickers are
“Focus on your own damned family”
“Born O.K. the first time”
“The Reilgious Right is neither”
I think Paul Krugman is more than half right, because he takes a fairly soulless topic and factors in human lives. What makes him worth reading is that he speaks in more than slogans and sound bites about how politics and economics and everyday American life are intertwined. He offers more of a “gestalt” view of the country than many who narrowly focus on dollars.
What we don’t need is eight more years of what we have been doing. I hope people like Krugman are helping to guide our nation’s economy in the near future.
Fred, have you read Lakoff? It is much more objective than the subjective stuff from the right about “how liberals think”.
RSF, financial industry giants like Bear Stearns and AIG are top heavy with MBA’s and Ph.D.’s in economics, not to mention JD’s and top-level accountants. Your claim of equivalence between them and John Q. Consumer who took the bait and bought a second home he shouldn’t have is ridiculous on its face.
The fact religious-right types are usually fiscally conservative doesn’t stop them from stuffing the bank accounts of people like Jim and the late Tammy Faye Bakker, and a bunch of other Bible-thumping heroes with feet of clay. Nor does it stop them from funding the political campaigns of malicious dipsticks like ex-Sen. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum and Joe McCarthy-wannabe Rep. Michelle Bachman.
In fact, the gullibility these true believers have demonstrated over many years leaves them looking like the biggest suckers of all. Their money and proactive support were crucial in bringing us the worst president and most corrupt administration and Congress in decades. And what did they get in return? A monkeywrench thrown into stem cell research for awhile, denial of family planning help for poor people here and abroad, and the Terry Schiavo fiasco. That’s some return on investment.
snave, those bumperstickers are priceless, LOL.
What Krugman’s about and what RSF and others of his philosophy seem incapable of understanding is that in a civilized society, turning everyone’s fate over to the mindless, soulless mechanism of the unregulated market is a formula for disaster. It always leads to booms and busts, where the nonwealthy and not politically well connected end up ruined and desperate, while the rich just keep getting richer.
History is clear about this. For some reason, the young, dumb and happy have a way of thinking it will be different this time. But it always ends up the same way.
>>>>have you read Lakoff?
No. I’ll see if I can work him in.
>>>>but I believe I have read or heard statistics which show those [red] states tend to have higher crime rates and divorce rates.
That is true on the face of it. What spinmeisters like me do is point out that internally blue states are islands of blue surrounded by an ocean of red. The vice stats in the blue urban areas are much much higher than the surrounding red suburban/exurban/rural areas.
>>>>I think Paul Krugman is more than half right
Krugman was a great economist back in the day, 30 years ago when he did his Nobel work. Now he has become ideologically intoxicated and it slants his work. He was predicting the imminent collapse of the US economy back in the late “80s during GHW Bush’s reign, but none of his predictions came to pass and Clinton implemented nothing he suggested while the economy did well.
>>>>financial industry giants like Bear Stearns and AIG are top heavy with [high IQ types]. Your claim of equivalence between them and John Q. Consumer… is ridiculous
Don’t overestimate the equalizing pull of greed. Don’t overestimate the human capital poorly deployed on Wall Street. Check this out: http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?print=true
>>>> Jim and the late Tammy Faye Bakker
Please. They had little political power.
>>>>ex-Sen. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum and Joe McCarthy-wannabe Rep. Michelle Bachman
Are you still running over pedestrians with your car?
>>>> the gullibility…
Their money didn’t buy the corruption of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or buy the blind eyes of Dodd and Frank. That would be Democrat money.
>>>> A monkey wrench thrown into stem cell research for awhile
I notice Bush ok’d stem cell research, something Clinton never did.
>>>> turning everyone’s fate over to the mindless, soulless mechanism of the unregulated market is a formula for disaster.
Let us also stay away from centrally planned economies. Mindless, soulless mechanisms are often better than the kleptocracies that try to replace them. The mindless, soulless market often serves the greater good. Let’s use it when we can.