There hasn't been ANY economic recovery since 2009

[DemocratForJustice]

Last edited Fri Jul 19, 2013, 02:49 PM - Edit history (3)

Despite the Washington Post trying to dress up as best they can a most depressing picture.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/middle-class-still-left-behind-in-recovery/2013/07/18/a408b174-ef9f-11e2-9008-61e94a7ea20d_story.html

The simple fundamental fact is that when official reported GDP is adjusted for REAL inflation it has been significantly negative every year since the recession began in 2008.

REAL inflation is at least 4% higher than that officially reported in cpi.
It could be as much as 7% higher.

REAL GDP growth is the same amount (i.e 4 to 7%) LOWER than the official numbers reported in the media.

Recent official GDP growth
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth

There has been NO recovery.


Disposable incomes continue to shrink.
Median incomes continue to fall.

Sure the stock market has been pumped up with the Fed printing $1tn a year, but that's about all.

Even the recent house price rise is just an illusion.
That has been pumped up by hedge funds buying tens of thousands of properties to rent out.
The largest price rises are in the previously worst affected bubble areas in the run up to 2007.
There is obviously something of a geographical spread out from this to some other regions.

The most savvy hedge funds (those who started buying up property in 2009) are now getting out of the market.

Interest rates for new mortgages have increased from 3.3% early May to 4.5% now (St Louis Fed data).
This will kill off the housing market.
Mortgage applications have already seen recent drastic falls.
The number of new homes under construction has also seen recent dramatic falls.

The vast majority of the jobs that have been created in 2013 have been poorly paid part time jobs.
The number of relatively well paid full time jobs is lower now than it was at the start of the year.

The ONLY age group that has seen a rise in labor participation rates is the over 54's.
Simply because far fewer people can afford to retire early.
Indeed the employment rates of the over 65's is increasing - they can no longer afford to retire at all.
This is further excluding younger age groups from the jobs market.
The under 25 unemployment rate is rising rapidly and we are just about to see the effect of the latest graduates from college and High School - they are going to find it very tough to find employment in the current environment.
Companies just aren't hiring.

The headlines of job number creation are being overstated by nearly 100,000 per month.
This is primarily due to two factors :-

The extremely high number of people that are taking on a second (or third) poorly paid part time job to try and keep body and soul together (see the recent articles about the McDonalds budget tips and employee earnings)
Around 400,000 people now have a second (or third) part time job than they did at the start of the year.

The large overstatement in the BLS Birth/Death model for the number of jobs in new business start ups (around 100,000 overstatement so far in 2013).

If the official government inflation figures were anywhere close to reality the US would never have been out of recession since 2008.

Official GDP growth numbers have been sliding since 2011/early 2012.

The big banks are currently busy slashing their Q2 GDP growth forecasts in light of the recent economic data.
E.G. JP Morgan and Goldman Sacs recently cut their forecast for Q2 GDP from 2% to 1% - other banks are doing the same - Barclay's lowered their estimate to +0.6%.
The initial Q2 GDP estimate comes out on July 31st.

I said a few weeks ago that I expected final Q2 GDP to come in around +0.6%, when all the big banks were forecasting 2%+.

As ever only a select few of the top 1% have been any better off over the last few years.
This is primarily due to the over $2.5tn of Corporate Welfare that the government and the Federal Reserve is currently handing out to the big banks, arms companies and other large Corporations.

The over $1.2tn of ANNUAL freebies, subsidies and handouts that are being given to the big banks.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023293726

The over $1.3tn of other ANNUAL Corporate Welfare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023293763

Military spending is now 50% higher than it ever was under GW Bush and TRIPLE what America spent during the cold war against the USSR and during the Vietnam war.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023296589

The 99% are considerably worse off now, than they were in 2010/2011.
They are worse off now than they were in 2009!

Real unemployment rates
U6 unemployment is now at 14%.
REAL unemployment is now at 23% (this includes the overhang of people who have given up looking for work because decent paying jobs just aren't out there).
?hl=ad&t=1351861609

Household median incomes are now below the levels of 1995
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tVaV9k1aJXE/UG29L-kE92I/AAAAAAAAAP4/rx4tbsBm-Mk/s400/Real+Median+Household+income.jpg

Real median male wages are now back to the levels of 1970


REAL inflation is now somewhere between 6% and 9% - not the 1% to 2% being officially reported.
?hl=ad&t=
Real inflation is at 9% for the model in use in 1980.
Real inflation is at 6% for the model in use in 1990.
The truth lies somewhere in between.

You know yourself that real inflation is much higher than is officially reported every time you fill up your tank or go to the grocery store.
And lots of other things that affect ordinary people disproportionately compared to the very wealthy, have also risen dramatically in price over the last 10 years - things like College fees and Healthcare costs.

Labor participation rates - no recovery

Source - Bureau of Labor Statistics

The numbers on disability continue to grow by between 250,000 and 300,000 a year.
(This despite a declining industrial accident rate.)
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/dibStat.html

[Kolesar]

1. No "corporations" have been given "$2.5 trillion" from the public treasury

The domestic automakers got a few tens of billions. The banks survived because the toxic assets program forced the public to pay for about $50 billion.

I don't understand this comment: "If the official government inflation figures were anywhere close to reality the US would never have been out of recession since 2008. " I am doing my financial planning. I would like to know if there is something to this. Welcome to our forum.

[DemocratForJustice]

3. The GDP number is dependent on inflation

The government drastically understates real inflation in their official cpi and core cpi numbers.

If the real rate of inflation was used (let's say real inflation is currently 6% the lower end using the inflation model in use in 1990) GDP growth would be being reported at over 4% less than it currently actually is.
I.E. the US would never of been out of recession since it began in 2008.

I am posting out about the $2.5tn+ of ANNUAL Corporate welfare - here is the first :-

The over $1.2tn of ANNUAL freebies and handouts that are being given to the big banks.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023293726

And here is the second.
The over $1.3tn of other ANNUAL Corporate Welfare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023293763

[HardTimes99]

15. Except that there is no inflation to speak of, as witnessed by 2% yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries

and 0% yields on 2-year U.S. Tbills. (If inflation were actually present, bond investors would demand and receive higher yields to compensate them for inflation.)

The low yields on 10-year and 2-year treasuries actually tell of the very real possibility of a deflationary spiral due to weak and shrinking aggregate demand.

We are out of recession, although not growing at anywhere near the pace we should be. "Recession" to econonmists means 2 or more successive quarters where GDP shrinks. The U.S. economy has not had 2 such quarters since 2009.

[byeya]

35. Disagree to this extent: The official rate of inflation is below what the FED aims for but the

way(s) inflation used to be figured, it's significant.

The QE process, the only thing open to the FED, has created an asset bubble which is fine to the rich and the Goopers who carry water for them. For the rest of us, it's not good.

[DemocratForJustice]

50. The 2% yield on 10 year Treasury notes is entirely the creation of the Federal Reserve private bank

buying up huge quantities of Treasuries for the last 3 years plus.

A look inside the Fed's balance sheet - this article is nearly a year out of date now.
The Fed's balance sheet is now around $3.4tn
The Fed has been buying $40bn a month of mortgage backed assets (MBS) and $45bn a month of longer dated Treasuries since Nov 2012.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/09/13/a-look-inside-the-feds-balance-sheet-15/

If true inflation was used in the GDP multiplier - the US would of been in 3%+ CONTRACTION for the last 4 years.

[HardTimes99]

54. "Federal Reserve private bank" - where do you get this rubbish? - nt

[DemocratForJustice]

66. What everyone should know about the Federal Reserve private bank

Everyone Knows that the Federal Reserve Banks Are PRIVATE … Except the American People

Most Americans Still Don’t Know that Federal Reserve Banks Are Private Corporations

The country’s most powerful “agency” – the Federal Reserve – is actually no more federal than Federal Express.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1928:

Instrumentalities like the national banks or the federal reserve banks, in which there are private interests, are not departments of the government. They are private corporations in which the government has an interest.

The long-time Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee (Charles McFadden) said on June 10, 1932:

Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies ….

The Fed itself admitted (via Bloomberg):

While the Fed’s Washington-based Board of Governors is a federal agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act and other government rules, the New York Fed and other regional banks maintain they are separate institutions, owned by their member banks, and not subject to federal restrictions.

For that reason, the New York Fed alleged in the lawsuit brought by Bloomberg to force the Fed to reveal some information about its loans – Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan) – that it was not subject to Federal Freedom of Information Act.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/everyone-knows-that-the-federal-reserve-banks-are-private-except-the-american-people.html


People are confused about the Fed, and I think it would be better if everybody had a clear understanding of what the Federal Reserve is and what it is not.First of all, the Federal government thinks of the Federal Reserve as a service bureau, whose function it is to print money that the government can spend. As long as the Federal Reserve performs that function--reliably printing, let's say, a trillion or more each year to top off the Federal budget--then Congress will be happy with the Federal Reserve (their rainmaker) and will follow its advice and try to keep it happy.

It should be emphasized here that the whole Keynesian smokescreen and sideshow has very little to do with the reality of the relationship here. The Federal Reserve's job is not just to lend Uncle Sam some money during a recession so as to provide temporary stimulus. The Fed is a milk cow for Uncle Sam. Its job is to give milk all the time.
So to summarize this first point, the Fed is a service bureau for the Federal government whose job it is to provide the government with freshly printed fiat every year. This job has very little to do with the Keynesian prescription of how to deal with a recession.
The Fed is also a service bureau to the big banks that own it. Its job is to give unfair advantage to those banks, either by granting them low-interest loans that can be rolled over into infinity, or by buying their bad debts and disposing of them properly, or by doing any number of other special favors for them that increase their profits and executive bonuses. The Fed is not independent in the sense that it is self-governing. It must provide service to the banks who own it and to the Federal government, which controls its legal environment. Big banks have owned and controlled the Fed since its inception in 1913.
Summary: The Fed is also a service bureau to the big banks. It is not as independent as it proclaims itself to be; it provides services for its owners. Its owners have a profit motive.

The Fed also has its own institutional agenda. It wants to expand and increase its own power. It wants to operate in a safe and predictable environment. It wants to eliminate threats. The Fed advances its own agenda by printing or withholding money. As time goes on, the Fed has asserted more and more control over government. The Federal government is now addicted to freshly printed debt-money. This gives the Fed enormous power over the government.

The big banks who own the Fed also dominate Congress and the Obama administration due to the massive bribes they deliver each year. Thus over time the Federal Reserve has become more and more the master: what it wants it gets, what it doesn't want doesn't happen.
Summary: The Fed is also a selfish, power-seeking institution. It is not an organization of scientists (even though it does employ a small army of Economics Ph.D.'s) whose sole concern is to manage the economy scientifically for the benefit of all.

Some people think the Fed prints money, but when you ask Ben B. about it, he says, "The Fed does not print money. We lend money." Printing money is easy to visualize and understand. Lending money is also easy to understand; it's what banks do. But what the Fed does is somewhat more difficult to understand. To put it into one phrase, "they print debt-money." They print money, but each dollar they print has the chains of debt attached to it. Each dollar they print represents a debt that somebody owes.
A Federal Reserve note is an IOU from the Fed that says "we owe you one dollar." There does exist in the world paper money that is not debt-money, but the Fed does not traffic in that. As the Fed prints more debt-money, they tighten the chains of debt enslaving the government and the people.
A national debt of $1 trillion is manageable. It might be paid off in a few years. But a debt of $17 trillion is permanently enslaving (unless it is defaulted upon). Ben's printing press, then, is also an enslaving press. If Americans were to try to default on $17 trillion of debt, The Powers That Be would unleash their full wrath on the American people.
Summary: Ben B. runs a printing press that is also a debt-enslaving press. We are wrong to focus just on the inflationary effects of his money printing. We should also be alarmed by the enslaving effects.
The Fed has infinite fiat, though they try to disguise that fact. It takes no more effort for them to loan a trillion dollars than a million dollars. They will never run out of zeros in their computer system. The zero keys on their keyboards will always function. No matter how much they can print, they always have available an infinitely greater amount of fiat that they can still print. Printing money requires nearly zero effort and zero cost on their part. They don't get worn out from printing money.
This whole concept of infinite fiat is hard for people to grasp; it is something outside of their experience. People's lifelong experience with money is that it is a limited resource. It is hard to conceive of a group of people who have unlimited, infinite money. Yet the Federal Reserve has just that. The Fed is not like a doctor who prescribes a short-term stimulus for a patient who is feeling run down. The Fed is not like a parent who temporarily puts training wheels on a bike until the kid learns how to ride it. These metaphors make people think that the Fed's fiat printing is temporary and limited. It is not.

Read more at:-
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly13/Fed-JeffW7-13.html

The specific details of who owns what of the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks, that make up the Federal Reserve along with the HQ in DC, is shrouded in secrecy.
The Rothschild family own by far the largest stake - JP Morgan and Goldman Sacs banks also have large shareholdings.
A few years after the Fed was created in 1913 it was also revealed that JP Morgan itself was largely owned by the Rothschild family and that JP Morgan himself only owned a relatively small stake in his own company.

[Marblehead]

79. Every American

should know this fact.....this is how they control the world

[DemocratForJustice]

101. Yep

Nobody is going to publish it in the mainstream media - or teach it at school or college.

And they certainly avoid it like the plague at college economic classes.
(It is not even part of the curriculum in training for investment bankers etc.)

You might be interested in the following video about how the Federal Reserve private bank keeps the acceptable range of economic discussion within what they consider "acceptable bounds".

You might also like the following quote from Noam Chomsky which describes the situation in all sorts of policy areas perfectly.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BFTBXcZ6ACw/UPC8EuMSm1I/AAAAAAAAAU8/Q2rX3K_usJI/s400/Noam+chomsky+2.png

[pizzadave]

152. Yup! NT

[bluestate10]

159. Go to Free Republic and lurk for a few posts. You will hear the exact same description

of the FED at that rightwing hell-hole. The OP did some classic rightwing bullshit in his or her OP, so it doesn't surprise me that the argument and responses to opposing post would be drenched in rightwing BS.

[DemocratForJustice]

185. It's not rightwing BS and it's not left wing BS

It is simple plain fact.

America's money supply and interest rates are controlled by a consortium of private bankers.

Other people on here know it's the truth.
Read comment 174 just below this one.

As with any private company the policies of the Federal Reserve are directed at maximising the profits of it's major shareholders.
The Fed cannot make a profit for it's share holders like normal companies.
Any profits the Fed puts on it books are returned to the Treasury each year.


So the Fed does other things, e.g. QE3, whereby it buys up distressed mortgage assets at far more than they are worth at the rate of $40bn a month.
It can then sell these assets at a loss (at the market rate) and buy some more.
This program directly improves the balance sheets of the big banks and goes directly to their reported bottom line profits.

The Fed reported a gross profit of $96bn in 2012.
I.E. it made an average interest rate of 3% on the debt in it's greatly expanded balance sheet of $3tn.
Instead of paying the Treasury all of the interest it makes on the debt on the balance sheet it has come up with a scheme to pay some more of that money to big banks.

Over 81% of the money printed in ALL of the QE programs since 2009 has gone to prop up the balance sheets of big banks.
Only 19% has leaked out into anything else, or into the real economy.

The QE2 and QE3 programs have almost all gone to improving the balance sheets of foreign owned banks operating in the US (mostly European ones).
American big banks already had excess reserves of $1.7tn.

The Federal Reserve is giving away money, that would otherwise be returned to the US Treasury (and therefore US taxpayers), to foreign owned big banks.

[dixiegrrrrl]

207. Labling facts as right or left wing does not make a fact go away.

That is trap too many have fallen into.....which prevents recognition of some very real problems.
divide and conquer at work...

[roamer65]

174. The Federal Reserve System..."our" central bank.

Last edited Fri Jul 19, 2013, 08:28 PM - Edit history (1)

It is a consortium of private banks, formed in 1913, in response to the Panic of 1907. It's early sponsors include JP Morgan, Paul Warburg, Senator Nelson Aldrich and others. This consortium of private banks was finally given the power over our currency, the dollar, by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Our national experience with two central banks had been dreadful, but hell...why not give it another go? LOL.
So...what are the results of the Federal Reserve Act? Did it stop panics like the Panic of 1907? Answer...No. It actually made them worse. Federal Reserve cheap money in 1927 made the crash in 1929 even worse...so there goes that theory. Only the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 stabilized the banking industry.
The Federal Reserve also pledged to maintain the stability of the dollar. The dollar has devalued by at least 97-97 pct since 1913.

1. We need an act even stronger than Glass-Steagall.
2. We need to return the control of the dollar to the American people, not a consortium of private banks.

[snot]

84. The overhwhelming majority of my expenses are

food, healthcare, energy, and housing.

The real inflation rate for most of the 99% has been pretty excruciating.

[DemocratForJustice]

124. EXACTLY (nt)

.

[lumberjack_jeff]

104. On which grocery aisle can I find these "T-bills"

In the world in which I inhabit, food and energy are most definitely subject to inflation.

[HardTimes99]

133. All goods and services are subject to inflation. As it happens, core CPI

calculations will deliberately exclude food and energy, precisely because their price swings are so volatile.

I've seen this happen with Folgers Coffee in my own personal life. Being a caffeine addict, I buy the big cans fairly regularly. It's not uncommon to see the price swing by 25-33% up or down from one week or month to the next. If all I were judging inflation by were the price of coffee, I'd be often tempted to argue that we are experiencing deflation (although recently prices have gone back upward).

What I'm getting at is that few investors would buy a bond yielding 2% annually if they knew that inflation would erode the value of their bond by > 2%. Instead, they would only be willing to pay less for the same bond (thereby garnering a higher yield). Short and medium-term bond rates are one surefire way to get a sense of the underlying inflationary pressures in a macro economy.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

202. Freeper arguments

"Core" inflation is not CPI-U. CPI-U includes food & energy.
The Fed is NOT a private bank. It remits its profits to the Treasury every year.
Shadow Stats is far from being the final word on inflation or GDP. It's the private opinion of a few people for what the rates of inflation, unemployment, and GDP are.

I've seen this exact same stupid idiotic ignorant BS posted on all the right wing sites I go to. I come here to get relief from this stupid crap, not to see this same ignorant trash yet again.

[HumansAndResources]

19. You are being generous using 1990 math ...

... throw in the unemployment-rate as measured in 1979 (pre Reagan's new math) and it gets worse. Real unemployment, which is the primary factor drying up consumer-spending (except for the plutonomy-fraction) is the culprit.

That won't improve until we scrap 'amnesty', enforce citizen-only hiring laws like every other nation on Earth except Iraq under dictator-Bremmer (that went well), and end the 501b visa program. Now throw in a tariff to cover all unemployment-costs - making the cause pay for the effect - and we might be on our way back from bleeding all our national wealth away.

Once we have a strong middle-class again, we can begin supporting the "race to the top" - bringing other nations up (instead of us down) via technology and clean-energy solutions. Oh, and not allowing Western Transnational Corporations to plunder their resources and people is important; We will have to deal with them, first, here at home, to make ANY of this happen, anyway.

[socialist_n_TN]

160. And where would the profit be in this pipe dream????

ESPECIALLY in your last paragraph. The quarterly bottom line would show, what? Some sort of LOSS for God's sake, if we tried to bring other nations up! HERETIC!!!

For the challenged, this was It DOES, however, show the attitude of capitalism to these moderately left wing ideas.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Don't forget the " Jobless Recovery " and the Historic propulsion of

speculating opportunists who are covered by official opportunists, need for greed . They ( TPTB ) don't want it to recover, there's no profit in prosperity .

[DCBob]

4. Thats a hard sell to the millions who have found decent jobs since being laid off..

back during the depths of the recession. I can only imagine how bad things could have gotten had we listened to the Republicans and just let the market take care of itself and no stimulus. Those graphs would be very very ugly.

[DemocratForJustice]

10. But millions of well paying jobs HAVEN'T been created

Since the start of 2009 to date around 3.5 million jobs have been created.

But the only increase in employment has been for the over 54 age group, where over 4 million more people are now employed.

There are over 500,000 LESS people in employment for the under 55 age group.
It's probably well over 1 MILLION LESS when you account for the increase in the number of people with 2 or 3 poorly paid part time jobs.

Since the start of 2013 there has been a large increase in the number of part time jobs.
The number of (relatively well paid) full time jobs has actually FALLEN quite a lot.

[byeya]

36. Certain groups have been left out of the ranks of employed. African American unemployment is

higher than in 2010; the long term unemployed have pretty much been deemed unemployable against their wishes; young people have a high rate of unemployment.
Participation in the labor market for all of employable age is at a near low showing widespread hopelessness.

[DCBob]

123. Of course there are still big problems but alot of folks are much better off than they were in 2009.

For sure the recovery is uneven, but overall there has been a recovery.

[Hydra]

146. For the 1%, yes

They appreciate your support.

[Fringe]

155. I am not the one percent...

And I am much better off.

[bhikkhu]

186. Me too...at the edge of the poverty line, but still much better off

In an area with very low cost of living it still works nicely.

The biggest improvement was, after a year of dotting i's and crossing t's, refinancing our house. We got out of a first and second mortgage and had enough equity to fold some of my student loans into a 15 year 3% loan, through our credit union. It makes things soooo much more relaxed....

[Fringe]

156. I am much better off now than I was in 2009.

[socialist_n_TN]

166. Bully for you!....

Anecdotal evidence notwithstanding, most people are NOT better off.

Also anecdotally, my own situation has FINALLY improved (just yesterday in fact) to the point where I'm making approximately as much money as I was in 2007. I was in the mortgage business then and we tanked a few months before the general Great Recession hit. And I'm in an area that was not particularly hard hit BY the GR.

Of course there are some qualifications involved in that "making as much money" statement. I'm working 2 jobs instead of 1. I'm working 9 or 10 hours MORE than I was in '07. And my main job is now commission based, rather than salaried. Oh, and my second part time job is 1099 which means I'm responsible for my own taxes and double the SS tax. So maybe I'm NOT "making as much money" after all.

One last thing. In '07 I was 55 years old and now I'm 61. With the uncertain nature of commission only work, I'm seriously considering taking early Social Security just to have SOME sort of steady income. I don't really want to do this, as it's less than I would get if I waited till 66 (or even 72), but I feel like I might need to just to get by. Hopefully, this second part time job will allow me to delay that. Of course, that's IF it holds out for 4 more year or so.

See what happens using anecdotal info to extrapolate the overall state of the economy?

[Fringe]

183. Most people?

Last edited Sat Jul 20, 2013, 08:07 AM - Edit history (1)

I don't think you really know whether most people are better off or not.

In fact many of the people I work with make more than they did in 2009 and constantly complain all a while spending gobs of money on trinkets and bobbles that then end up giving away or throwing in the trash.

Some people are better off and some people just perceive that they are not. I work with lots of people who have gotten themselves into to debt and end up paying so much in interest that they don't have any money except for food or bills.

These are the people I work with presently and the same with the people I've worked with in the past.

Yes, people do struggle but many people create problems of their own making.

As far as unemployment especially with people who are over 40 and especially over 50, age discrimination is a big problem and with so much of the population getting older= a lot of unemployed older folks.

I also lost my job in 2007 and I am over 50 and it took me almost 3 years to get a full time job. Because of the programs in the last 4 years, i was able to get free training, extended unemployment and food stamps all while taking any minimum wage job I could find.

It was a very hard time for me. I have years of experience and I was passed over by younger less experienced people twice and even though I have a job it still happens when I apply for promotions.

I've struggled and many like me are doing better today because what Obama and the democrats made available with programs and assistance.


(Also please excuse, any mistakes. I'm on an Ipad, I don't have the internet, just my Ipad)

[bluestate10]

161. And WHO is responsible the that? Can you bring yourself to say republicans? nt

[DemocratForJustice]

187. Nope, I cannot say that because it would not be the truth.

In the fiscal cliff deal, both parties agreed that all of the over $1.3tn a year of annual Corporate Welfare should be retained and that the middle class and below should receive a $200bn a year tax hike.

The following is not the largest example of Corporate Welfare but it makes the point well.

Obama could of proposed that all of the current subsidies to big oil be ended and that as a result the payroll tax would only go up by 1% instead of 2%.
(They are both worth around $50bn a year.)

How could the GOP argue against such a proposal?

Big oil has had a decade of record profits and is still making huge profits, thanks to high oil prices.

Almost all of the $50bn would of gone to middle earners and below.
Most of the middle earners and below are living on the breadline and struggling to make ends meet.
They would of spent most of this extra $50bn, that would now be in their pockets, in the American economy which would create some more jobs and thus expand the economy - instead of it going directly to the bottom line profits of big oil companies - which creates next to no extra jobs.
(Sure quite a bit of it would of been spent on some more Chinese imports etc.
American companies still make profits and need employees to sell Chinese imports to American consumers.)

How could the GOP argue that more money should not be returned to hard working ordinary American families and less should go to subsidizing big oil companies?
They would not have a leg to stand on.

But Barack Obama (or Harry Reid) did not make this proposal.
They kept all of the the current government handouts and subsidies to big oil.

[Boomerproud]

190. The graphs are ugly enough.

and so is my present and future.

[Katashi_itto]

5. Stock market is trading is actually flat, meaning only the 1% are really trading and it's really

just with each other.

[HardTimes99]

16. Hunh? I'm no Pollyana about today's economy but the stock market indices are all

firmly up since 2009, a fact helping to take the sting out of many people's losses from the Great Recession (as their 401-Ks and IRAs will have recovered quite a bit).

[Katashi_itto]

27. No, I'm talking trading volume. Your quite right about the market going up

The trades are occurring between a smaller portion of players

[reformist2]

26. +1 The stock market is increasingly irrelevant to most people's lives.

[spooky3]

30. I think the opposite is true.

Since 401ks have replaced defined benefit plans as most Americans' primary source of retirement income (after SS), and these funds are invested in the stock mkt and in other places, people's lives are highly influenced be the stk mkt.

[reformist2]

33. Only something like 15% of Americans have 401Ks.

And if you do have one, the average balance is like $20,000. A laughable amount when considering funds for retirement.

[Quantess]

34. I think at one time there used to be more people with 401ks

but many 401ks were wiped out in the great recession.

[spooky3]

45. Please provide links. Most people have >1

401k, and I believe the % with at least 1 is much higher.

On edit: for example, the survey cited here puts the figure at closer to 40-45%:

http://www.401khelpcenter.com/press_2011/pr_limra_101811.html#.Uek836a9LCQ

[reformist2]

48. The number I keep getting is 65 million accounts, but many people have more than 1 account.

So the actual number of people who have a 401K is far less.

[spooky3]

53. Again, provide links.

People change jobs, so they accumulate multiple accounts, and this affects the average balance in each account.

Other people have 403bs and other types of 401a defined contribution plans. These should be added to the % of people affected by the stock market. In addition DB $ are also invested in the stk mrkt by trustees, and this also affects Americans even though they don't direct the investments.

Both your average acct balance and % who have any acct #s are WAY off, which is why your statement about relevance of stock markets is wrong.

[reformist2]

57. I'm pretty sure you can do a google search.

[spooky3]

108. I'm pretty sure you can admit you were wrong.

Last edited Fri Jul 19, 2013, 03:44 PM - Edit history (1)

It is standard practice at DU, when making a claim of fact, to provide links. I provided one for mine. Dancing around when challenged is not a good persuasion tactic.

On edit: Average balance in 401ks (to say nothing of IRAs, 401as, and other plans) is about $77k.

http://blog.aarp.org/2013/02/15/401k-balances-climb-to-record-high/

Really, I don't know why someone wouldn't take one minute to check facts before making factual claims.

[ipaint]

154. More facts

401(k) balances no cause for celebration

"Fidelity announced with great fanfare in mid-February that the average 401(k) balance hit a record high of $77,300 by the end of 2012. It is good news that balances are up from a year earlier, but $77,300 does not indicate success in retirement saving. There is nothing encouraging about this number...

The only real supplement for most private sector workers will be their 401(k) plan. A balance of $77,300 would produce a monthly income of about $360. That’s an alarmingly small amount. Combine that with diminished Social Security benefits and most American households are going to face hard times once they stop working."

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/encore/2013/02/27/401k-balances-no-cause-for-celebration/

"We are on the precipice of the greatest retirement crisis in the history of the world. In the decades to come, we will witness millions of elderly Americans, the Baby Boomers and others, slipping into poverty. Too frail to work, too poor to retire will become the “new normal” for many elderly Americans.

That dire prediction, which I wrote two years ago, is already coming true. Our national demographics, coupled with indisputable glaringly insufficient retirement savings and human physiology, suggest that a catastrophic outcome for at least a significant percentage of our elderly population is inevitable. With the average 401(k) balance for 65 year olds estimated at $25,000 by independent experts – $100,000 if you believe the retirement planning industry - the decades many elders will spend in forced or elected “retirement” will be grim. (Update: In response to readers’ questions about the lower number, Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research, estimates that 75% of Americans nearing retirement in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts.)"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsiedle/2013/03/20/the-greatest-retirement-crisis-in-american-history/


"New SCEPA research documents that, despite the growing tax breaks and intensive advertising campaigns for 401(k) and IRA retirement accounts, Americans nearing retirement are more likely than previously expected to experience downward mobility in their golden years. Specifically, people ages 50 to 64 - 58 million in 2010 - will likely not have enough retirement assets to maintain their standard of living when they reach their mid-sixties.

Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), SCEPA's new Fact Sheet, Near Retirees' Defined Contribution Retirement Account Balances, is the first to provide a breakdown of defined contribution (DC) retirement account balances by income...

Three quarters of near retirees (ages 50 to 64) have annual incomes below $52,201, with an average total retirement account balance of $26,395 . When stretched out into an annuity over an average retirement lifetime, this sum does not provide a significant addition to a monthly Social Security benefit (see Table 1.) Further, the median value of retirement account balances for half of near retirees is zero, meaning that over half of this group has no retirement savings.

Individuals with incomes over $52,201 per year have more in their retirement accounts, but their balances are not high. Their average retirement account balance for this income group is $105,012. Because only a few people have very high balances, the median balance is much lower; 50 percent of people ages 50-64 in the top 25 percent of the income distribution have retirement account balances of only $52,000."

http://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/index.php/guaranteeing-retirement-income/528-retirement-account-balances-by-income-even-the-highest-earners-dont-have-enough-sp-1870142316

[socialist_n_TN]

171. How safe do you think that's going to be ....

during the NEXT crash and crisis of capitalism? My wife is the one with the 401k and hers lost about half it's value during the '07 crash and I fully expect the next one to be worse.

How can ANYONE think they can rely on ANYTHING to do with capitalism and the Stock Market? The system is BUILT on boom and bust cycles and those cycles are getting closer and closer together, with the "recovery" phase taking longer to reach. When they want your 401k money, they'll take it. That's capitalism.

[reformist2]

181. Yep. All we have left is Social Security. And we're going to have to fight tooth and nail to keep it

[roamer65]

180. That is true.

Many people don't roll them over because it is such a pain in the ass to do it.

[bhikkhu]

222. That's not true, not by a long shot

You can say the stock market has a direct impact on the finances, or the ability to retire, or to pay their bills in retirement, for more than half of Americans.

Then you can also say that the stock market, inasmuch as it represents the health of corporate America (hated as it may be here), also has a direct effect on the jobs of about 48% of US workers, who are employed by corporations.

The indirect effects spread out to pretty much everyone.

[reformist2]

224. Most Americans have very little in the stock market - certainly nothing to retire on.

[bhikkhu]

225. "very little" is still a lot, to those who have put something aside

My point is just that the stock market (again, inasmuch as it represents the health of publicly held US corporations) does make a difference to most people. 52% of people have some direct investment in stocks; even if they don't have a lot, what they do have probably represents a small second income in retirement, the difference between comfort and poverty, a little bit of security for rainy days, or the ability to be a provider over the long term. It matters, and the indirect effects are much larger.

Plenty of people have nothing (more often due to the whims of fate than any fault of their own) and most of those depend, one way or another, on people who have something (also more often due to the whims of fate than any special merit of their own).

[Fringe]

157. Why would you say it is flat?

Volume is consistent with previous years. Also, I make only 38000 a year and my 401k has had consistently high earnings within the last 4 years.

[geckosfeet]

6. But wait - earnings for commercial banks including BOA are way up!!

Last edited Fri Jul 19, 2013, 09:10 AM - Edit history (6)

Haven't your heard? The latest round of earnings reports - bank after bank, 40%, 60%, 70%.

Thanks to Bernake's taxpayer funded multi-billion bond buybacks (euphemistically referred to as quantitative easing to hoodwink the public) the banks are rolling in taxpayer dough. Not that the taxpayer benefits from it, but on paper it all looks good and "restores confidence" in the economy.

And every time he mentions cutting the program back they ratchet up interest rates and tank the markets to scare people. They have Bernake in a strangle hold of his own making - the foolish moron.

BofA Other Banks Break Out Amid Earnings Reports

Bank of America (BAC) and Bank of New York Mellon (BK) topped profit expectations Wednesday, and both stocks broke out of short bases.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America earned 32 cents a share, up 68% from a year ago as the bank cut litigation and other expenses.
Revenue rose 3% to $22.9 billion, above views. The stock topped the 14.09 buy point of a six-week base.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Citigroup (C)also beat expectations and reported strong investment banking results recently. Their shares had little reaction, although they continue to form bases.


.... lots more to gag your soul here
BofA Other Banks Break Out Amid Earnings Reports

Literally billions per month going to the banks. And this is all they can show for it. They should all be posting 200% increases in earnings. I wonder what column the accountants are hiding the buyback cash under?

Mr.Bernake and co. How different would things be if instead of buying off the banks you bought off the people - you know - those little people whose tax dollars you are giving away to your rich buddies on Wall St.

I have not done the math, but calculate all the billions, probably approaching trillions at this point that has been handed to the banks in the buyback program, and figure out how much each man woman and child in the US would get if it was divided up among them - how much would each man, woman and child get?

Then instead of enriching a few people on Wall St. you help families and people who need help. People who will take the money and plow it back into the economy for food, cars, housing, clothes, health care and education.

How would we feel about hearing that the economy is recovering then?

I am ashamed of what they (Bernake et al.) are doing. And I am very disappointed in some of the economic policies that this administration has enacted.

[DemocratForJustice]

8. Well said

and some good factual information to boot.

[HumansAndResources]

13. Foolish moron? Who do you think he works for ... Us??

I am sure his next job - on the other side of the "revolving door," will include a lot of "thank you" pay.

[geckosfeet]

14. For the most I am sure you are correct.

But I would also add that I am sure there is a lot of payback going on under the covers and behind closed doors right now....

[datasuspect]

24. that opportunity extends to his children

his children's children, their children's children's children

and so on.

[Kolesar]

144. "banks are rolling in taxpayer dough"-You have no idea what you are talking about

Thanks to Bernake's taxpayer funded multi-billion bond buybacks (euphemistically referred to as quantitative easing to hoodwink the public) the banks are rolling in taxpayer dough"

Please read post #1 .

[geckosfeet]

177. Another errrp. Please google quantitative easing and get back to me.

[Kolesar]

205. Such command of the English language you have!

It's not public money.

[geckosfeet]

209. Errrp again. Not up front. But do you think the Fed is just doing this out of a sense of decency?

No. They want to profit from any increase earnings from the bonds, assuming they actually do increase in value. If not, then the taxpayer takes a double hit. And the bond buying process is being underwritten in some fashion by the US government.

I would like to know the details of the agreement, so if you have them at hand please forward them, but I am sure that the federal government is underwriting the new monies that the Federal Reserve is minting to fund the buyback process. And the US taxpayer stands directly behind that underwriting.

My assertion is that we would all be far better off if that instead of being used to underwrite a cronyistic banking scheme, that money went to Main St USA where far more of it would be immediately pumped back into the economy.

[woo me with science]

167. This should be an OP,

highlighting this part and the moral appeal that comes after:

Literally billions per month going to the banks. And this is all they can show for it. They should all be posting 200% increases in earnings. I wonder what column the accountants are hiding the buyback cash under?

But these vultures have no morality.

[quaker bill]

7. I do not need models

To know what you are saying is incorrect. I run a very small business in my spare time. It is a sole proprietorship and I am the owner and the only employee, so am intimate with every detail, as I personally make the product and make every sale.

The long and short of it is this. I started in 2006. Sales plummeted in 2008, both in number of transactions and average ticket. It stayed roughly flat until 2011. Since then sales have improved, both in number of transactions and average ticket. The slope was gradual but steady improvement until after the 2012 election when there was a sudden spike upward.

I am now at between 90% to 110% of 2007 sales at the same venues. You can see it in people's faces, you don't need graphs.

[OnlinePoker]

41. Here's the way an economist friend explained the recovery to me

They almost always start with low paying service industry jobs, the reason being that people are more willing to part with disposable income at restaurants and bars and shop for small ticket retail items. As the economy gains more solid footing, the big ticket items like cars, boats, houses, etc start coming in. As we've seen recently, car sales, especially in North American brands, have increased a lot. As for manufacturing, he says to forget about any big increase in numbers in North America for two primary reasons...there are few items that are cheaper to build here than in places like China, and automation has taken away the need for massive numbers of workers (the auto industry is a good example of this).

[bluestate10]

163. I see people investing in housing and buying products like ranges and air conditioners.

What I see is economy progress.

[quaker bill]

178. My stuff is affordable to mid range jewelry

People can purchase hand made and fairly unique stuff from me starting at $30 and ranging up to $750. For several years most of what I was selling ran in the $30 to $50 range. Now most of my sales are north of $100. You get what you pay for, so there are better materials and more work in the $100+ stuff. People are heading back in that direction.

I have no doubt there is a recovery of some sort going on as I can see it in the sales slips.

[grantcart]

9. Your absolutist "ANY" undermines your credibility as an analyst.

A better analysis is actually found in the link contained in your link (which didn't support the "no recovery of any kind" headline.

Evidence shows that pent-up wage cuts reflecting downward nominal wage rigidity have been an important force during the most recent recession and recovery. This has shaped the dynamics of unemployment, wage growth, and inflation from 2006 to 2012. The Great Recession was not special, however. We find that pent-up wage cuts have slowed wage growth in the aftermath of all three recessions since 1986. The main difference is that the depth of the most recent recession has intensified the impact of downward nominal wage rigidity. The spike in workers who are experiencing no wage changes has reached record levels. Once it begins to decline, we expect wage growth to accelerate.

Moreover your crediting a 110% increase in stock prices to fed printing vast amounts of money is way off for the following reasons:

a) It isn't true

What they fail to grasp is that their initial assumption that the Fed is printing boatloads of money simply isn’t true. If it were true, I would join them in their dire predictions. But it simply isn’t true and hasn’t been true throughout this period. The latest estimates from the Fed’s H.6 Money Stock Measures show growth in M2, a broad measure of the money supply, actually declining since the Fed resumed significant asset purchases last fall. M2 growth in the three months ending in February was 4.6 percent; it was 6.5 percent in the previous six months and 6.8 percent over the previous 12 months. Even this moderate growth is muted by the average decline in M2 velocity of around 3 ½ percent in recent years, yielding a growth rate of nominal GDP of roughly 4 percent per year.

b) If it were true then there would be significant inflationary increases.

c) If it were true then the dollar would be getting weaker rather than improving by 20% against the Euro in the last 5 years

d) And finally elasticity in liquidity is largely in the private market. When you go out and get a car loan the fed hasn't printed $ 10,000 but a finance company has expanded its liabilities. In the last 6 years private borrowing has deeply contracted.

Blaming the Fed monetary policy is a hollow right wing talking point.

Has the recovery been uneven. Absolutely. Have wages remained flat. Absolutely, something that other recessions have also experienced.

Your links don't even support your premise:

The economic recovery of summer 2013 is playing out in an all-too-familiar way for poor and middle-class Americans: Gas prices are up, growth is slowing, and there still aren’t nearly enough new jobs to employ the almost 12 million people seeking work.

An improving housing market and rising stock prices appear to have done little to increase the take-home pay of the typical U.S. worker. And while the economy continues to heal faster than that of almost any other Western nation, evidence remains strong that the recovery has done little to boost the fortunes of people in the vast economic middle.

Economic indicators released Thursday continue to show a mixed picture of the recovery — and certainly not one pointing to a surge in working-class incomes any time soon.

BTW the reason that disability rates continue to rise is that states hire contractors to help long term welfare recipients apply and qualify for disability so that they can move them from state budgets to federal ones.

[HardTimes99]

18. Bravo! I was getting ready to reply to the OP with Disraeli's quip about

Last edited Fri Jul 19, 2013, 09:54 AM - Edit history (1)

"lies, damned lies and statistics." But I think you have dismantled this OP sufficiently that it should die a graceful and painless death.

[geckosfeet]

22. There may be some hyperbole and questionable references but the base meaning is correct.

So I think it will live on.

Not sure what world that you live in but the current "economic recovery" is a recovery for the rich and Wall Street.

[HardTimes99]

25. There's no question that the fruits of the recovery have been disproportionately

skewed to the top 1% (actually, the top 0.7%). However, when Obama took office in January, 2009, the economy was losing 750,000 jobs/month. While the number of jobs added each month barely keeps up with new entrants to the labor force, the economy has been adding jobs each month since Obama took office. (I'm relying on memory here, may have been one or two months since Obama's inauguration where there were actual job losses.)

Likewise, in the second half of 2008, GDP was shrinking (the definition of recession, as economists use the term). Since January 2009, GDP has been growing. Anemically, for certain, but growth is the condition that refutes claims that a recession continues.

Again, one can note that the economic gains have been skewed toward the top echelons while also noting that there has been a macroeconomic recovery. That's the world I live in.

[geckosfeet]

29. I do think that some of the buyback money has escaped the confines of Wall street and seeped

out in into the greater economy.

But I still wonder how things would have been if all that money was distributed directly to the US taxpayer to inject back into ALL sectors of the economy - not just the financial sector.

I prefer the seep up approach rather than the rich to the masses seep down approach. More efficient and it goes where it is needed.

[HardTimes99]

32. The excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of a small elite is seldom

a good thing for any society, including this one. One would think rich people would be a little less ignorant of history (1789, 1917, 1947). OTOH, since most of America's elite got their riches through inheritance and not through the sweat of their brows, it may be that a certain amount of inbreeding has occurred within the elite, akin to what befell Europe's aristocratic and monarchic lines.

[reformist2]

43. Bailing out the people instead of bailing out the banks??? God forbid!

This is a country of the banks, by the banks, and for the banks.

[grantcart]

111. I agree that the base meaning is correct, that is why it is too bad his presentation

undermines its effect, although it appears that one of his 'base' meanings is that the stock market recovery is simply a result of inflationary fed policies being to liberal. I think that most DUers would argue that the Fed policy has either been good or too conservative but not too liberal. Again its hard to discern because his 'base' message is all over the place.

[DemocratForJustice]

31. Counter arguments

a) The Federal Reserve is now printing $1tn a year.
$480bn a year in QE3 and $520bn in QE to infinity.
QE3 buys distressed mortgage assets at far more than they are worth.
QE to infinity buys longer dated Treasuries.

The rally from Nov 2012 to record high prices is ENTIRELY due to the announcement by the Federal Reserve that they were going to increase their printing from $500bn a year to $1tn a year (and the fact that there was a definitive election result - unlike 2000).

The big American banks are sitting on $1.7tn of "excess" reserves.
They can't lend it out to anyone - nobody wants to borrow it.
The only recent credit expansion has been in student loans, subsidized auto loans and sovereign debt.

The big banks are using the $1.7tn for SPECULATION.
A lot of it is going in speculation in the stock market.

In March 2009 there was a bounce in the stock market from oversold levels.
Then we got QE announcements to keep it going.

Corporate earnings did increase, especially in those companies that were receiving massive government handouts - like the big banks and arms companies.

Corporate earnings are now slowing down (except for the big banks).
The consumer is tapped out and disposable incomes are continuing their relentless decline.

b) any inflationary pressures in goods and services are held down by the massive overhang in the global labor supply

Real wages are actually DECLINING not increasing.

The global over supply of labor has just reached a new record high (since the Great Depression of the 1930's).
Since globalization started in earnest around the turn of the Century, 1 billion potential new workers joined the global labor supply just in China and India.
These people could do jobs previously performed by workers in the West (principally America and Europe).
There are many more potential new workers in the rest of SE Asia and Africa etc.

You cannot absorb this huge increase in the potential number of Western style workers in such a short a time period as 15 years.
The total number of workers in America is around 150 million, slightly more in Europe, around 50m in Japan - total around 400 million in the West in total.
The number of workers potentially able to do Western style jobs has at least QUADRUPLED since 1998.

The impact of globalization is far less than half way.

There are high levels of unemployment across the globe.
There is high under utilisation of labor (part time working by those wanting full time work).
There are ever lower participation rates of the labor force in the West (a lot of people have given up looking for jobs, because no well paying jobs are available).

Increasing numbers of people are working longer, they can no longer afford to retire early.
Increasing numbers are working beyond retirement age, they cannot afford to retire at all.
Both of the above reduce the opportunities for younger workers to enter the labor market.

China has just started it's first manufacturing facility in Africa to lower labor costs.
10,000 people in Ethiopia are going to be making $4bn of cheap shoes every year.
Doubtless China will seek to utilise more cheap African labor in the future.
China cannot create enough jobs to satisfy the demand from it's domestic market - yet it is still prepared to divert jobs abroad.
Unemployment levels and social unrest in China is rising because of the shortage of manufacturing jobs.
Unemployment in China is set to get worse with the recessions in Europe and America in 2013/2014.

Just like in the period 1992 to 2007 where there was also massive monetary printing, we are seeing huge inflationary impacts in ASSET prices.
Stock markets.
Bond prices etc.
Both of which now look to be on their last legs.
The Japanese stock market has already crashed.
US junk bond prices have fallen significantly (yields have increased as have mortgage rates).

c) Europe is bankrupt.
There are over 500 European banks that are insolvent and will need further bailouts.
The vast majority of European countries are also bankrupt and will need bail outs.
I expect France to be the next major shoe to fall - it will probably get reported in the mainstream around the end of the year.
Just about ALL of the major French banks are insolvent - they loaned out far too much cheap money to countries like Greece and Italy.

The fact that the dollar has risen is a function of 2 main factors :-

The market is far more aware of the insolvency and bankruptcy of Europe than they are of America
The market will catch up with reality eventually

At the start of any financial crisis money moves from more speculative investments to what they perceive to be safer areas.
Hence the dollar has always risen at the start of financial crises in the last few decades.
(Hot money is also moving out of developing countries - their stock markets are also seeing falls.)

d) The velocity of money is at all time lows.
The $1tn of new money being printed by the Fed every year just isn't circulating in the real economy.

In fact ALL of the $500bn that the Fed has printed so far this year has gone into propping up the balance sheets of FOREIGN owned insolvent banks (mostly European ones).

The Fed's balance sheet has gone from $800bn at the start of 2008 to over $3tn now.
It will be over $4tn by the end of the year.
The Fed Governors (and some other commentators) are worrying about how the Fed will ever be able to exit this huge amount of debt on the Fed's books.
The answer of couse is that they will never be able to without dramatic adverse repercussions on the global financial system and markets.

[byeya]

38. "Nobody wants to borrow" or really almost nobody wants to borrow or use their corporate largesse

to expand productive capacity because there's already excess capacity.

What you are ably describing is the FED deperately trying to avoid deflation. You won't see runaway inflation in a deflationary world and that's what has the FED scared. The Republicans are being disruptive and sooner or later the big money boys will order them to allow needed fiscal stimulus.

[DemocratForJustice]

75. Yes

That's a pretty good way of putting it.

[byeya]

77. Thanks. Bernacke knows a lot about the Great Depression; he wrote a pretty good book about

it and the efforts to regain prosperity. He, and the rest of the world, know what deflation is and the capitalists will do all in their power to avoid it. Deflation is bad for workers especially; inflation impacts the rentier class hardest.
Right now with interest rate suppression, those retirees who saved their working lives to fund their retirements are in trouble because they are finding themselves in a yield-starved environment.
Instead of "return without risk" it's become "risk without return".

[DemocratForJustice]

85. Yep

That's why increasing numbers cannot afford to retire early and increasing numbers are having to work past the age of 65 (usually part-time).

[grantcart]

112. question: Did you read Bernacke's book or familiar with it through general review and

discussion?

[grantcart]

110. You are new to DU so here are some tips:

First welcome to DU.


1) DU is something of an anomaly. It is a combination of a pep rally and Über think tank. At any given time there is a trend of "fuck" the Republicans and/or "we have been betrayed" by our Democratic leaders. The quality of this discussion varies. It is a lot of rare emotion and varies between great insight and competitive outrage. On the other hand it is made up of a lot of people with very deep back grounds. For example if you make an OP about cars it is quite possible that you will get a comment from someone who worked in the manufacturing plant, someone who designed cars for a while, someone who sold cars for a living and so on.

You put in a lot of effort into your OP. Now you have to decide if your going to be part of the pep rally or part of the think tank. Both are important here. We could use more think tank OPs so I hope that you will choose the latter.

2) Your style of writing is unreadable. Pick a narrow topic and stay with it. Document it. In your OP you state that there is no recovery at all and yet your first link makes a contradictory point, namely that there is a recovery but it hasn't affected wages. A link in that report goes on to point out that wage recovery is always a lagging indicator of a recovery and just because it is lagging doesn't mean that the recovery didn't exist.

3) I think that the strongest point you are trying to make is that wages remain flat despite a recapitalization of the market. But instead you are arguing that the recovery never happened. The Dow Jones Industrial was started in 1880s and it took 130 years to reach 6700 after the collapse and in 5 years it has reached 15,000 and is on its way to 16,000. A century from now they will be studying this period as the greatest recapitalization of a collapsed economy in history. You will lose sophisticated readers when you make sweeping absolutist statements like:

There is no recovery

Europe is bankrupt.

Don't tell Norway and don't tell Germany and so on. Europe is facing a classical structural crises. They are trying to get a unified economy like the US but they continue with 26 national banks each with its own monetary and borrowing policy. This is exactly the same problem that we faced during the Articles of Confederacy. It is an extremely complex problem and you treat it with an inaccurate sweeping generalization that really has little to do with your main point.

4) The rise of the US dollar is based on sound realization that the US currently has the strongest economic policy. Europe has its structural problem and China's central planning has created a monstrous real estate bubble as these videos document:

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/69817240-china-builds-desert-ghost-city-as-critics-warn-of-bubble.html


It is absolutely true that wages are flat. There are multiple reasons for this:

1) Political policies that support uber concentration of capital and under taxing those that benefit most from the whole system
2) Increasing globalization of trade
3) Increasing productivity

Any of those would have been fodder for a thoughtful OP but you mash it all together and then tie it to Fed policy which most of the DU community wishes would be more liberal, not less.

It is a profoundly difficult subject. Let us consider this dilemma: Let us assume that globalization has run its course and policies have been adjusted. In this science fiction world we are approaching a Star Trek like economy. In a world where productivity has increased and continues to increase we live in a world where your self worth is defined by the work that you do but we are structuring an economy that only has work for 70% of its population.

There are many causes that are undermining stagnant wages, one of which is that it is a lagging indicator in a recession. I hope that you will reconsider your presentation of OPs so that you can join the discussion here. Blaming Fed policies is not simply wrong, or a gross simplification, it is a right wing talking point.

[DemocratForJustice]

132. TY for the tips - I am new here

Some clarifications.

The EU is definitely bankrupt.
They will never be able to repay their debts.
They will default and/or a large proportion of the debt will eventually be written off.

Nothing the European politicians have done in the last 3 or 4 years has in any way improved the situation in the EZ.
In fact they have made things far worse.
Austerity measure have not decreased the deficits of the most problematic Southern European countries.
The increased cost of social welfare payments due to the sky high unemployment rates have more than offset other minor savings in spending.
"Austerity spending cuts" have almost all been directed in the wrong areas and spending has continued in the wrong areas, e.g. Greece agreed a new $800million contract for German arms.

Germany has nowhere near enough money to bail out the rest of the Eurozone.
It only comprises about a quarter of the Eurozone.

It took West Germany around 10 years to absorb the costs of integrating East Germany and the East German economy was only 10% the size of West Germany.
The rest of the Eurozone is 300% larger than Germany.

Of the rest of the Eurozone
Finland is not bankrupt nor is Estonia.
Holland is borderline.
The rest of them are - as is the UK.

Germany has enjoyed an economic boom over the last 10 years+ and still is, due to it's artificially low exchange rate helping it's exports.
Germany still only has 5% unemployment.
(It still has some very dodgy large banks - Deutschebank being the main one that is going to need bailing out.)
Germany's exchange rate has been lowered because it shares it's currency with far less productive and efficient neighbors which brings the value of the Euro down.

However as the economies of most of the rest of the Eurozone collapse, Germany too will start paying the price of a misguided project to unify Europe under one government and one economic policy.

Countries outside the EU like Norway and Switzerland are still doing very well.

Since when has it been off limits to criticize the Federal Reserve?
Where have you seen the Federal Reserve criticized on Faux News? If you have one please show me the clip or link to an article.

The Federal Reserve is currently bailing out the big banks to the tune of $480bn+ a year.
There is no economic free lunch.
It will be paid for by someone.
It will be paid for by everyone that does not own a large slice of the big banks (or receive large bonuses by sitting on their boards).

The big American banks are speculating with their $1.7tn of "excess" reserves.
Most of it is going on speculating on the stock market and the bond market.
But enough of it is going into speculating on food and energy futures and pushing up prices more than they would otherwise be.
Which is pushing up inflation experienced by ordinary people.

How Goldman gambled on starvation
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-goldman-gambled-on-starvation-2016088.html

Goldman Sachs just announced that it made another $400m in 2012 speculating on Food prices.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/goldman-sachs-food-prices_n_2525571.html

Goldman Sach's food speculation turns Global Hunger into Wall St profit
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/22-5

I agree China is going to suffer heavily from it's central planning mistakes.
It's not just the collapsing housing bubble and the bad debts that go with it, it's over capacity in all sorts of areas.
China is rapidly slowing down and trying desperately to avoid a hard landing.
Official Chinese economic statistics are notoriously unreliable - if you go by energy consumption China's growth rate is already down to about 3% and rapidly slowing (not the 7.5% GDP growth officially being reported).

The stock market took off from around 1980 due to huge amounts of money being printed by the Federal Reserve.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7VJ0V3c593s/UIbuq5ITZ3I/AAAAAAAAARo/-2kvNa8asv8/s320/Total+US+money+and+inflation.png

This huge money printing led to huge income inequality.
Only the rich really benefited from it.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RBJ23r3jdSo/UTDBK7FislI/AAAAAAAAAdA/qhk6gNcatv0/s640/Family+income.jpg

The U.S. does NOT have a strong economic policy.
It is spending FAR too much on Corporate Welfare, the military and bailing out the big banks.
The US economy is slowing down - I expect it to be in a severe recession in 2014.

In fact the US is in a similar or worse economic position to Italy.
The US has far stricter terms for paying unemployment benefits and the US includes less of the real unemployed than Italy.

Italy official unemployment 10.8%

Unemployment in the US is probably even worse than Italy, but it is very difficult to compare like with like.
All governments use different criteria when compiling their unemployment statistics and the US deflates the number of unemployed more than everybody else.

The US also deflates more than everybody else, in it's official inflation statistics.
The US drastically understates the contribution of food and energy inflation, two of the items that have seen the highest inflation in recent years and two of the items that affect the great majority of people the most.
It also uses more hedonic adjustments than other governments. (See NB3)

All governments lie about real inflation in their inflation numbers, it has a huge bearing on government costs (pension payments, wage demands by government employees etc.).
It also makes the government's performance look better if official inflation is lowered.

The US just lies more than everybody else about real inflation.

If real inflation numbers are used the US would have been in recession in 2011.

But here is the real kicker
US unfunded liabilities (social security, medicare etc.) are around $84tn or 560% of GDP.
The unfunded liabilities continue to grow at circa $5tn per year, with existing provisions and new bills passed by Congress.

Italy's unfunded liabilities are only (sic) 180% of GDP.

Total US gov debt & unfunded liabilities circa 660% of GDP.
Italy circa 300%

Italy is now paying a real world rate of interest of circa 7%.

The Federal Reserve is currently buying $100's billions of US Treasuries to artificially deflate US interest rates.
From January they will be printing $85bn per MONTH of new dollars.
$45bn per month buying Treasuries and $40bn per month buying MBS.

The Federal Reserve has increased it's balance sheet from $880bn before the financial crisis to well over $3tn now.
As the lender of last resort this $2tn difference is effectively the shortfall between the amount of money the US has borrowed and the amount of money other countries are prepared to lend to the US.
The Federal Reserve balance sheet is set to expand by a further $1tn in 2013 ($85bn per month).
Source Wall Street Journal and the Federal Reserve.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/09/13/a-look-inside-the-feds-balance-sheet-15/

Soon enough the rest of the world will realise that the US will never repay it's bills, unless some very drastic changes are made to it's current policies.
At that point confidence in the dollar will be lost and the US will pay a real world rate of interest on it's government debts.

China and Russia have already realised this and are taking steps to address this huge issue.
Russia has now almost completely sold it's holdings of US Treasuries.
China has reduced it's holdings by $100bn in the last year or so.
China is no longer lending to the US and is seeking an exit from US Treasuries.
China and Russia are working on building an economic coalition and the development of a new "currency" that will replace the US Dollar as the world's Reserve Currency.
Brazil, India and Japan have already signed up.

NB1. The average interest rate on US national debt for the last 200 years is between 5 and 6% (but that was when the US was far more fiscally sound than it is now.)

[grantcart]

134. I am not going to respond to your sweeping conclusions because they just are not

that well informed.

For example


Finland is not bankrupt nor is Estonia.

That kind of counters your whole "the sky is falling" perspective.

Finland had one of the worst crashes in the post Soviet period of Europe

In 1991 Finland fell into a depression caused by a combination of economic overheating, fixed currency, depressed Western, Soviet, and local markets. Stock market and housing prices declined by 50%.[55] The growth in the 1980s was based on debt and defaults started rolling in. GDP declined by 15% and unemployment increased from a virtual full employment to one fifth of the workforce. The crisis was amplified by trade unions' initial opposition to any reforms. Politicians struggled to cut spending and the public debt doubled to around 60% of GDP.[55] Some 7–8% of GDP was needed to bail out failing banks and force banking sector consolidation.[56] After devaluations the depression bottomed out in 1993.

During the 1990s Finland folks like you would have looked at the headlines and said that Finland is finished, bankrupt, kaput. Indeed suicides peaked




They rebuilt their economy and people unfamiliar with it point to it as being in a stable condition, and ironically dismiss the UK as now being 'bankrupt'

In fact while the present situation is favorable the long term outlook for Finland is not as good as the UK simply because the UK continues to be an immigration destination and will continue to benefit from it:

http://www.stat.fi/tup/suomi90/joulukuu_en.html

Finland's population is greying - labour shortage looms

On the 90th anniversary of her independence Finland has the world's fastest ageing population. The Baby Boomers are retiring, and the lengthened life expectancy will increase the size of the elderly population in the coming years. The effects from the population development that has gone on for decades are now becoming visible: because the fertility rate has already stayed below the reproduction rate for a generation, more people are exiting working age than entering it. The diminished supply of labour will inadvertently lead to labour shortage.

As matters stand, the shortage of labour can only be solved by attracting labour from abroad. Otherwise the inescapable consequences will be reduced labour force and declining economy. There will not be enough tax payers to sustain the rapidly rising number of pensioners. The growth in the number of elderly people not only means risen pension expenditure but also increased need for health care and other services. How the future will shape up will largely depend on the development of immigration into Finland.

I am concluding my response to this thread as you obviously don't get my point; that your grand uninformed factually deficient cosmic statements are as sweeping as they are banal.

You are obviously very impressed with your own very selective view of what is going on so you should return to it.

[truedelphi]

203. This is lot of information.

My only question at this point is this one:

Why is this labelled as "counter arguments?" Or did yo mean, your information can counter arguments to the idea of how there is no recovery.

[uponit7771]

125. FCUK FACTS!!! We hate them, better to listen to the M$M...they never steer us wrong dangit!!!

[bluestate10]

165. The OP used lots of rightwing buzzwords and fact dismissals. The text became so

predictable that I stopped reading after four paragraphs.

[roamer65]

182. Your point "d" needs refinement.

The Federal Reserve certainly can create the $10,000. The American banking system is a fractional reserve system. A bank borrows a MUCH smaller amount from the federal reserve and then through fractional banking, turns it into $10,000. Nifty little magic trick, eh? They even get to do it with your deposits...yummy!

Only banks get to pull this little "magic trick", because they're so honest only they should be able to do it.

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

11. Lol. nt

[leeroysphitz]

12. Well aren't you a ray sunshine this morning? n/t

[progressoid]

17. NO NO NO! Everything is great!!!!

[Laelth]

20. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Android3.14]

21. Troll

Move her along, or put her on a jury.

[datasuspect]

23. the rich are getting richer and that is ALL that matters

i sleep better at night knowing that the super yacht sector is doing VERY VERY well.

[Progressive dog]

28. Why are you using graphs showing median family

wages adjusted by the fake government inflation? If you use the "real inflation from the 1980's, you could show we're not even a third world country now. Stuff that doesn't make sense might be wrong.

[DemocratForJustice]

40. Charts showing wages against REAL inflation

are very hard to come by.

I haven't seen any - I used the best available.

[Progressive dog]

52. Should be easy to calculate with a computer

The point is that with the huge differences between BLS and the so-called 1980's inflation, median family income would have obviously been sinking at a fast pace for 30 years. Assuming 4% difference in inflation, averaged over 30 years, median income would be 3.3x as much in 1983 as the chart shows. So in 1983 median family income was about $165,000 in today's money.
That is obviously ridiculous. That means that those high inflation numbers you posted are obviously junk.
The numbers for each year are available, we're talking elementary algebra to do the calculations.

[DemocratForJustice]

74. Yes, it is simple math and could be produced

Except that there would be disagreements about the real inflation rate - is it currently 6% or 9% or more probably something in between?

As an example of how the current inflation numbers are put together :-

Hedonic adjustments.

The price of an average PC was about $1,000 ten years ago.
The price of an average PC is still about $1,000.

However the processing speed and memory capacity has greatly increased over the last 10 years.
Lets say they have both gone up by a factor of four.

The government's official inflation statistics would report the inflation rate of PC's is MINUS 75% over the last 10 years.
The consumer is still laying out $1,000 and it doesn't really do any more than PC's did 10 years ago.
(This also applies to reported business inflation costs for businesses that buy PC's - almost every company these days.)

This applies to a great many things.

E.G. the equipment levels in new cars is much greater today than it was 20 years ago.
The price of a new car hasn't changed that much in 20 years.
But the official government inflation statistics would report there has been substantial DEFLATION in the price of automobiles.

E.G. the functionality of new cell phones has greatly expanded in the last 5 years or so with the advent of smart phones etc.
The official inflation statistics will report that there has been very substantial deflation in buying handsets, when people are actually spending far more on a smart phone handset than they did 5 years ago for an "ordinary" phone.

[Progressive dog]

76. You posted 2 of them, use the one closer to the BLS and

see how the numbers look. Give you something to do as you starve on that tiny median income.
I'm pretty confused about the phone bit, is there some law that says you can't buy a basic phone? The last I knew inflation was change in cost of identical things, if you choose to spend more on a phone, then that's your choice, it's not inflation.

The official inflation statistics will report that there has been very substantial deflation in buying handsets, when people are actually spending far more on a smart phone handset than they did 5 years ago for an "ordinary" phone.

[DemocratForJustice]

88. They take the average price of what people are paying for handsets

and then adjust for average functionality.

[Progressive dog]

149. Who does this, the guys with the "revised inflation"

or the BLS. You said this

The official inflation statistics will report that there has been very substantial deflation in buying handsets, when people are actually spending far more on a smart phone handset than they did 5 years ago for an "ordinary" phone.

First you say that the people are actually spending more on phones so that is inflation, when it's really not. Then you say

and then adjust for average functionality

Which is it? Adjust what for average functionality? Compared to what?
If you are going to defend those inflation numbers that you quoted, then you should at least know what inflation is. Even if you did know, it's pretty tough to defend a 3:1 difference in real incomes now vs 30 years ago.

[Politicub]

37. I'm calling bullshit on this piece of link bait

There are several measures that signal growth that the OP conveniently ignores.

A large one is recovery and growth of 401k balances.

And there are other positive indicators that another poster has provided above.

Hopefully there will be a minimum wage increase to goose the economy even more.

There's a long way to go to make all boats rise, but to say the economy has not experienced growth is disingenuous.

[geckosfeet]

42. The OP is talking almost exclusively about the public sector - jobs and consumer income.

I think that the OP would agree that the financial sector is booming in large part because of Bernake's quantitative easing bond buy back money. But that ends up being dark money that we never see. It goes to corporate bottom line in some fancy MBA accounting hocus pocus.

And when Bernake even hints at ending the taxpayer funded trillion dollar buyback program, the banks ratchet up interest rates and tank the stock market to shake people up.

I say give the money to Main Street, and let it trickle up to Wall Street.

[DemocratForJustice]

62. Yep

Wall St (the big banks, hedge funds etc.) are doing very well out of the current system - at the moment.

And yes again.
Money needs to be given to Main Street and to middle earners and below - not to big banks or arms company execs etc.

Main Street will spend any extra money in the real economy not hide most of it away in trust funds or offshore tax shelters.

The economy will NEVER recover until the disposable income of ordinary people starts rising again.

And it it has been plummeting at an ever increasing rate since 2001 (with a small upward temporary blip during the housing bubble).

[Jamaal510]

194. +1

[Safetykitten]

39. Kick and R for truth telling.

[scheming daemons]

46. extreme fail by a known troll

If you can't see the improvement from March 2009 to today you are willfully ignorant.

[1ProudAtheist]

47. And This Is News To?

Certainly not to any of those who are still out of work. The "stimulating" stopped when the stimulus ran out.

[Egalitarian Thug]

49. Congratulations! You've attracted a veritable who's who of DU's corporate boot-lickers. n/t

[DemocratForJustice]

55. Thanks for telling me

I'm new here - I've been watching without an account for a while now.

[Safetykitten]

56. I'll say!

[ProSense]

59. Are you referring to those who recognize that the OP is pure bullshit? n/t

[great white snark]

81. And you are once again lock step with any troll spouting crap about how bad we are.

Misery loving company is acted out every minute on DU.

[Civilization2]

51. The problem is systemic and fundamental; the need for GROWTH is the problem.

"Sustainable degrowth is a downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. It calls for a future where societies live within their ecological means, with open, localized economies and resources more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions. Such societies will no longer have to “grow or die.” Material accumulation will no longer hold a prime position in the population’s cultural imaginary. The primacy of efficiency will be substituted by a focus on sufficiency, and innovation will no longer focus on technology for technology’s sake but will concentrate on new social and technical arrangements that will enable us to live convivially and frugally. Degrowth does not only challenge the centrality of GDP as an overarching policy objective but proposes a framework for transformation to a lower and sustainable level of production and consumption, a shrinking of the economic system to leave more space for human cooperation and ecosystems."

http://www.degrowth.org/

[reformist2]

61. It's a dangerous proposition - capitalism itself is based on assumptions of growth.

[Civilization2]

69. Sustainable capitalism is possible,. but not this corporate capitalism of plunder and exploitation.

Yes the very principle of economic growth is flawed,. and all these measures that are used to manipulate peoples thoughts on this fundamentally flawed principle are smoke and mirrors.

This world provide plenty for all its people,. but not enough for the greed of a few.

Until and unless we deal with the fundamental issues of our societal organization, corporate capitalism predicated on "endless growth", we will continue to be prayed on by the 1% with the wealth and therefore the power to maintain the broken systems.

[socialist_n_TN]

173. If it's sustainable, or at least static, it's not capitalism...

Capitalism is based on constant expansion and growth. Which is the reason it's in it's end stages now. That systemic need for growth is bumping up against natural limits.

Socialism could be sustainable because it's based on cooperation and planning for NEED rather than growth.

[Civilization2]

206. I am thinking of a balanced "social-market economy" type system,.

yes it would need to be far more toward socialism in many regards however you could still call it 'capitalist' for the propagandised to get a grasp on the concept. Some people have been bred to instinctively recoil from the "evils of Socialism" and have visions of drab gray landscapes of carbon copy people forced to live in the exact same manner when they hear the word. Of course, this is an American phenomenon, as most european democracies are heavily balanced with social programs, and capitalist freedoms. Suppose we really need new language moving forward or a way to fix peoples skewed visions.

http://steadystate.org/

[truebluegreen]

64. Best post in this thread; thank you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

106. The main problem is one of distribution, not growth. n/t

[Civilization2]

139. infinite growth on a finite planet is just not possible. basing our economy on this idea is silly.

Sadly, this is one of the first tenets of corporate capitalism. Growth is required by the "economy" hence it is a silly pyramid scam that eventually fails,. we are experiencing this now.

[lumberjack_jeff]

142. The people for whom this economy is supposed to work don't need or demand infinite growth.

The current GDP is wholly adequate to sustain all of the citizenry comfortably.

If that were done, the economy wouldn't need stimulus.

[ProSense]

58. Update: Recovery Measures

Update: Recovery Measures

by Bill McBride

<...>

At the worst point - in Q2 2009 - real GDP was off 4.7% from the 2007 peak...Real GDP returned to the pre-recession peak in Q4 2011, and has hit new post-recession highs for six consecutive quarters.



<...>

This graph shows real personal income less transfer payments...This measure was off 11.2% at the trough in October 2009...returned to the pre-recession peak in December, but that was due to a one time surge in income as some high income earners accelerated earnings to avoid higher taxes in 2013. Real personal income less transfer payments declined sharply in January, and were 3.3% below the previous peak in March.



<...>

Industrial production was off over 17% at the trough in June 2009, and has been one of the stronger performing sectors during the recovery...industrial production is still 1.3% below the pre-recession peak. This indicator will probably return to the pre-recession peak in 2013.



<...>

Payroll employment is still 1.9% below the pre-recession peak and will probably be back to pre-recession levels in 2014.



http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/05/update-recovery-measures.html

Members of Congress have the power to change the economic equation, but they're refusing to act.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022796943

[Safetykitten]

60. All hands on deck...AOOOGA!

[ProSense]

63. 2012: State-level data confirm nationwide recovery

State-level data confirm nationwide recovery

By Doug Hall

State level data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that most states have been experiencing the steady progress towards economic recovery that we have been seeing nationally. Over the three-month period from October 2011 to January 2012, every state except New York experienced a reduction in its unemployment rate (New York’s rate increased by 0.1 percentage point, reflecting growth in the labor force, despite gaining 64,500 jobs over this time frame). Over the course of a year (from January 2011 to January 2012), seven states experienced job growth exceeding 2.0 percent, while North Dakota experienced growth of 5.7 percent. Notably, five states (Alaska, Mississippi, Missouri, Rhode Island and Wisconsin) lost jobs over this period, led by Wisconsin’s loss of 12,500 jobs.

Despite these positive trends, there remain four states and the District of Columbia with unemployment rates at or above 10.0 percent (led by Nevada at 12.7 percent), while 11 states plus the District of Columbia have unemployment rates of 9.0 percent or higher.

States looking to further spur economic growth should invest more significantly in infrastructure, such as transportation networks, schools and broadband, while avoiding budget cuts that would impede economic recovery today and could compromise future economic prosperity.

- more -

http://www.epi.org/publication/2012-march-state-nationwide-recovery/

[ProSense]

65. Krugman: Employment recovery from Great Recession better than after most historical recoveries

Krugman: Employment recovery from Great Recession better than after most historical recoveries
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021411751

[DemocratForJustice]

80. Now adjust those charts for REAL inflation

I.e. subtract 4% plus a year from reported official GDP growth.

That puts actual GDP growth at MINUS 2%+ a year for 4 straight years.

Now adjust the headline employment survey report for the QUALITY of jobs.
(And then further adjust it for the large overstatement in the BLS Birth/Death model.)

Simplest way is to take the readily available number of poorly paid part time vs relatively well paid full time jobs.
The number of part time jobs has substantially increased - they usually pay minimum wage to $10 an hour.
And as the name suggests they have average hours of between 20 and 25 hours per week.

Meanwhile the number of full time jobs has actually DECREASED since the start of 2009.
The jobs being lost have something like average pay of around $50,000 a year.
(Jobs paying $35,000 to $80,000 are prime targets for outsourcing to lower wage countries.
Less than that - it probably isn't worth it.
More than that and it is probably a manager or specialist skill not so easy to replace.)

TOTAL WAGES have actually gone down over the last 4 years.
But nobody reports total wages.

How many part time jobs are the equivalent wage of one full time job?
About 3? More?

Then we have to take account of the increase in taxes on the middle class and below.
The Fiscal Cliff deal had a massive tax hike of $200bn a year on the middle class and below.
$108bn from raising the payroll tax by 2% and about $100bn a year from the closure of middle class tax loopholes.

Then we have to take account of REAL inflation in basic necessities :-

Food, housing, transportation, heating, basic clothing etc.
All except the last have risen by FAR more than the reported circa 2% official inflation.

Disposable incomes (that which is left after paying taxes & basic necessities) are continuing their relentless decline at an ever increasing rate.

The amount of money available for discretionary spending in the American economy is falling off a cliff.

NOBODY talks about the amount of money available for discretionary spending by the 99% in the mainstream media.
It doesn't fit with the intended narrative.
The plebs might rebel if anyone told them the truth.

[ProSense]

83. Now, watch this drive

Your post is gibberish.

Presented with facts, you decided to spin them away.

[DemocratForJustice]

89. I didn't "spin anything away"

I just re-iterated the points in the Op-ed in a slightly different way.

It's you that cannot spin the points in the Op-Ed away.

Most of what you put in your post is just repeating "economists" employed by the Corporate controlled media.

[bhikkhu]

223. There are all sorts of different methods one might use

...I've looked at shadowfacts off and on for years, and generally decided their methods are flawed and ideologically driven.

If you go into the data with the intention of finding a specific result, and then adjust your spectacles until the result you're looking for springs into focus, that's pretty much what you get. Anyone can cherry-pick data to get the result they want, but then that's really just constructing an private version of reality.

That sort of thing has worked badly for the repugs so far, and I don't think it will work any better for any other group. You might wish that things were worse, but the economy really has made significant real gains, benefiting the great majority of people in the US, since 2008.

on edit - here's the recent changes in consumer spending:



Of course, if you say that those numbers are cooked and to get the real real numbers you have to deduct 1% a quarter, then you see an economy in a long death-spiral, rather than one that's been building strength for 5 years now. People have been choosing to see things one way or another for ages, its nothing new at all.

[taught_me_patience]

176. complete and total ownage of the OP! n/t

[treestar]

67. Must be really dark in your world. nt

[progressoid]

129. It's really dark in a lot of our worlds.

We can't afford rose colored glasses.

[whttevrr]

68. tl;dr :: Someone do the cliff notes. Is the sky falling or not?

Should I quit my job and move to [insert apropos location] ?

[HardTimes99]

70. LOL - It's a dirty job, but someone had to do it (read the OP's gibberish). I

knew better, more the fool I.

[whttevrr]

71. I like the squiggle lines...

Mmm, Graphs...

[HardTimes99]

73. Grantcart (mid-thread) pretty effectively demolishes the OP, saving

you a lot of time.

ProSense also effectively refutes at other points in the thread.

Me, I look for linquistic tells like "Federal Reserve private bank" to know when to make discretion the better part of valor.

[geckosfeet]

78. How do Grantcart, ProSense and yourself square the booming economy

with a major US city filing for chapter 9 bankruptcy protection?

Municipality Bankruptcy
U.S. CITIES, TOWNS AND COUNTIES THAT HAVE FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY

Someone is doing well, it just doesn't show up in some places.

[JoePhilly]

82. Detroit's numbers are included in

The larger data set.

You might as well argue that unemployment can't be improving because your brother in law still can't find a job.

[geckosfeet]

95. Oh I see. So we just write it off. They are poor black people so they don't count.

As long as we prop up Wall Street and the people who really matter we can turn our heads and feel all warm and cozy with our latte's and Beamers.

That just does not work for me.

[stevenleser]

212. Using Straw men against other DUers does not advance your argument. nt

[geckosfeet]

214. Which straw man? The poor unemployed one in Detroit or the rich one on Wall Street.

[stevenleser]

215. Any one where you alter that person's argument instead of addressing it directly. aka, the meaning

of a straw man.

[geckosfeet]

216. Ahhh. So you must mean this one too....

You might as well argue that unemployment can't be improving because your brother in law still can't find a job.

My assertion is simple - quantitative easing has benefited the rich, arguably propping up the banks and giving the appearance of a recovery while stranding poorer cities and and NOT benefiting the larger US population.

Devising a program to distribute even a fraction of those trillions to people who will inject it directly into the economy would have provided real economic growth. I believe in bottom up, not trickle down reaganomics.

I understand the political hurdles and obstacles, but that is all I am trying to say.

[Sheepshank]

90. How does your sky is falling square with the 1000's of cities

and towns that are NOT taking out bankrupcy, and in fact have a serius reduction in unemployment, homes being sold in pre recession numbers with less time on the market?

I honestly don't see how one City's finances, and inability to pull out of the recession, can be used as a national marker. Remember what Arnie did to California and it's economy while he was governor? Is that to be taken as a reflection on the financial status of ever other state in the Union?

[geckosfeet]

96. Yeah. Okay. See my response above.

And it's not one city.

See link in my post.

[Sheepshank]

99. And continues to imply that Cities taking out bankrupcy is a new thing?

seriously?

[geckosfeet]

115. Yes - when was the last time a MAJOR US CITY went bankrupt? Can you say NEVER.

Yeah some small mini-city in Connecticut went belly up a few years back. I don't think they compare to Detroit, a city that was once a major US economic engine.

Write it off. Pretend it doesn't matter. Ignore it. I don't care. You nor anyone else has told me how or why Wall Street deserves to have trillions pumped into it to prop up the illusion of a thriving economy while other cites are allow to shrivel and die.

And no one has justified pumping trillions into Wall Street while letting the American consumer fend for themselves.

The 7 Biggest Cities Ever to File for Bankruptcy

[Sheepshank]

119. Look at your own fucking link

and check the dates of those bankruptcies.

The narrative in your link says it all:

Today, the city of Stockton, California, became the largest city in U.S. history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (something we've broken down by the numbers). But though Stockton is the largest city to take this unfortunate route, it's certainly not the first. More than 600 municipalities (including counties) have filed for bankruptcy since Chapter 9 filings first became an option in the 1930s, according to this article from ABC News.

Sheesh. Where was your ourtage in 2011, 2001?

To claim that I am not showing enough of an outrage or that I don't care, is just another idiotic confirmation of you inability to recognize you are worng to judge me or anyone else via the limited info you get via a posting or two on this thread.

[geckosfeet]

127. I did. About half of them are post 2008. And watch the language pal.

I don't deserve to be cursed at just because I won't kiss corporate ass.

Lots of home owners have lost their houses and gone bankrupt as well. But I suppose that"s all their own doing.

You have not advanced ANYTHING that tells me why we should pump up Wall Street and ignore Main Street.

Using the word fuck doesn't do it.

[Sheepshank]

147. no one is asking you to kiss anything

so you can quit with the martyr syndrome any time now.

Moving the goal posts to include homes isn't bolstering your argument...it just makes you seem desperate.

I'll fucking say as much fucking cuss words as seems appropriate....free speech and all...right?

There is plenty to be pissed at with regards to divergin incomes, corporate greed, and crapping on the little guy. Pissing about Detroit as some sign of something special isn't it.

[geckosfeet]

141. Errrp. National unemployment rate. Oh where is that number. Lets just call

it an even 7.5% and not quibble over .1% between rich a$$hats.

My point is Bernake is propping up Wall St. with bond buy backs and letting Main Street scramble for the crumbs.

[Sheepshank]

148. you are changing your point.

You were all worked up about Detroit going bankrupt, and were hell bent on trying to have other believe it it is a one off event.

[geckosfeet]

150. As a symptom of propping up Wall Street and letting Main Street scramble for the crumbs.

The two are not unconnected imo.

[HardTimes99]

131. None of us (AFAIK) said the economy was 'booming.' I have taken

to thinking of it as anemic, a sort of dead cat bounce done in by Republican demagoguery and charlatanism (with an assist from some Democrats, to be sure).

A 'booming' economy would mean one where GDP was growing at 3.5-4% a year or more. At that point, inflationary pressures might reappear.

As for Detroit, some of my earliest political memories are of the Nixon and Ford adminsitrations and the travails of New York City in the mid- and late 70s. NYC never actually had to declare bankruptcy, but Ford initially rejected any bailout for it. Eventually, though, a package of federal loans was pushed through that allowed NYC not to declare bankruptcy. I have a difficult time imagining the Libtards in Congress allowing such a bailout today, but I still think President Obama should have spent some political capital to try to get one.

This link from NPR colors in the picture about municipal bankruptcies (including NYC's close call) quite adeptly, imho:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=60740288

[whttevrr]

87. That's about where I skipped down to the 'reply button'

I saw the a) b) c) d) evisceration of the OP and thought to my self: "Self? Something is hinky in those charts." As in, isn't "REAL inflation" a fluctuating number? How does using 1980 inflation and 1990 inflation compare to 2010 inflation. And why would I use the inflation rate from 20 & 30 years ago to know what inflation is today?

Then I was reminded of "lies, damned lies and statistics."



So... I should keep my job, right?

[HardTimes99]

94. For some reason, your posts are making me giggle uncontrollably. Not sure why :) - nt

[whttevrr]

122. If we don't laugh we cry

[DemocratForJustice]

140. The article refers to the cpi models in place at different dates to calculate inflation

There were 2 major changes to the way cpi was calculated - one in the early 1980's and one in the early 1990's.

If the model that was in place in 1980 to calculate cpi was in place now - reported cpi would be 9%

Similarly if we use the cpi model from 1990, reported cpi inflation would be 6% now.

[Jessy169]

72. Infinite growth cannot be supported by a world of finite resources

Our entire economy is based on the expectation of growth. Growth is only possible when there is available energy and other needed resources to fuel that growth. Maybe the lack of economic growth has a lot to do with the fact that we are simply running out of energy and resources.

Petroleum and fresh water are perhaps the two most critical resources, and the world is now grappling with the limited availability of both.

For example, in 1964, nearly 500 billion barrels of oil were discovered. By 2011, it had fallen to below 100 billion barrels.

In 1965, the world produced 32 million barrels of oil per day. By 1980, that number had almost doubled to 62 million barrels. However, since 2005, oil production has plateaued at roughly 75 million barrels per day. In that time, total supplies have bumped around within a narrow 5 percent band.

http://independentreport.blogspot.com/2013/01/infinite-growth-in-world-of-finite.html

I personally think too many DU'ers are hung up on the "rich getting richer" thing. Sure, they are getting a LOT richer, but those accumulated riches are just constantly growing offshore accounts -- basically, putting the money where it stays out of circulation.

Keeping the economy flat, I believe, is a goal that is intended to stretch out our remaining resources as far into the future as they can go. But at some point, and not too far into the future, that thin eggshell is going to start cracking.

Our capitalistic, growth-oriented economy will ultimately collapse. Our consumption is killing us and ruining the world. It isn't going to get any better, especially as we continue to add millions and billions to the world population. We are very close to the breaking point.

[bluestate10]

168. The OP ignores that the rest of the world is getting it's piece of the economic pie.

The recovery from deep recessions in the USA will never again be what it was when America dominated the world economy without parallel. I am one of the most pro-American economy people on this site, but even I must admit that jobs that were once commonplace and could be had with no education past high school are impossible to get today. Segments of American society will go underwater economically and stay there, writing this pains me deeply because I wish dearly that some other end would come about.

[Jessy169]

221. THIS explains everything

Retired senior CIA analyst tells us exactly why there is stagnation and lack of jobs.

The Coming Age of Geo Scarcity and Geo Destinies

And yes, oil consumption is up in many countries -- especially China -- while American consumption is down. The growth of energy consumption closely parallels economic growth -- decline in energy consumption parallels economic decline.

Time to wake up?

[naturallyselected]

86. I'm not an economist

I am no economist, and I can't argue your numbers; I'm sure they are all correct, and well-researched. Common sense tells me that there can be no robust recovery until people have money to spend. And that is going to be very hard to accomplish when so many of the new jobs are part-time, low-wage positions. So, in essence, I agree with much of what you say.

But - I do tech consulting, free-lance. The contracts dried up for a couple of years; now I have as much business as I can handle. I also teach at a college. Wages had been frozen for a couple of years, and hiring was stopped. Now, wages are increasing (slowly) and hiring has resumed. My retirement fund lost half it's value, now it is at it's highest value. My house lost 1/3 of it's market value. It is now almost back to it's highest value. No one could sell a house in this town. Now, my son is looking for a house to buy, and houses stay on the market weeks at most, and selling in days is more the norm.

I am not among the 1%, or even among the 30-40%. Our family income is a little above the median. Things are getting better. Without substantive change to the banking industry, I worry that everything could crash again, but to say there has been no economic recovery is, in my corner of the world, just not true.

I am also no apologist for the corporate world. I think the "job creators" are being incredibly short-sighted in their current strategy. By keeping the masses as poor as they can in this slowly improving economic climate, they are killing off their customer base, and their long-term financial health. I don't understand the strategy - not only are the 90% unable to improve their lot, without folks buying stuff, the economy will continue to stagnate, and the recovery, even though it is real, will be very, very slow.

That's my simplistic understanding of the economy - I can't back it up with graphs and research, only with what seems to make sense to me.

[DemocratForJustice]

92. Your last bit about the Corporate world cutting their own throats is absolutely correct.

If ordinary people have less money to spend they won't be able to spend money in their businesses.

Over 99% of businesses are losing out in the current system.

The only ones that are gaining are those that receive large government subsidies and favors - principally :-

Big banks
arms companies and private "defense contractors"
Monsanto
Large pharmaceutical companies
The private prison business
Those involved in the systematic corruption and bribery called "lobbying" which are paid to get the special favors from the politicians

Just about every other company in America is very significantly losing out on the deal.

[ProSense]

91. BLS: State unemployment rates were "little changed" in June

BLS: State unemployment rates were "little changed" in June
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023294735

Clearly, there has been "hasn't been ANY economic recovery since 2009" and we're now in dire straits. Ignore the facts.

[DemocratForJustice]

93. The BLS Household survey for June reported

360,000 low paid part time jobs were created
240,000 relatively well paid jobs were lost

They also showed that 17,000 more people became unemployed in June.

The June job numbers were actually the worst reported so far this year.
They amount to a decline of roughly $6bn in total gross wages.

[ProSense]

97. U.S. job growth improves, exceeds expectations

U.S. job growth improves, exceeds expectations
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023173685

[ProSense]

100. Employment Report: More Hiring, Wages Up, Still Weak Labor Market

Employment Report: More Hiring, Wages Up, Still Weak Labor Market

The good news: This was the best first half for private employment gains since 1999. Also hourly and weekly wages increased 0.4% in June, and hourly wages are now up 2.2% over the last year (weekly wages are up 2.5% year-over-year).

Some bad news: the employment-population ratio for the 25 to 54 year old group (prime working age) declined, the number of part time workers (for economic reasons) increased and U-6 (an alternative measure of labor underutilization) increased to 14.3%.

Some numbers: Total nonfarm employment is up 2.293 million over the last 12 months, and up 1.211 million so far in 2013 (a 2.42 million annual pace).

Private employment is up 2.357 million over the last year, and up 1.234 million so far in 2013 (a 2.47 million annual pace). The following table shows the first and second half and full year changes in private employment since 1998.

- more -

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/07/employment-report-more-hiring-wages-up.html

[DemocratForJustice]

105. Please tell me where they calculate total gross wages in that report

Please tell me where they break down the split between part time and full time jobs.

Please tell me where they recognize that the number of new business start ups is declining by over 5% a year and the average number of people employed in those startups has declined significantly.

Please tell me where they specify the largest employment growth in June was in restaurant and bar staff (+51,700 jobs).



It's not exactly an area of employment well noted for being well paid.

[ProSense]

109. "Please tell me"

Please tell me where they calculate total gross wages in that report

Please tell me where they break down the split between part time and full time jobs.

Please tell me where they recognize that the number of new business start ups is declining by over 5% a year and the average number of people employed in those startups has declined significantly.

Please tell me where they specify the largest employment growth in June was in restaurant and bar staff (+51,700 jobs).

... what that has to do with measuring a recovery? You're complaining about things not being to your satisfaction, that has nothing to do with whether or not there is a recovery.

There were a lot of complaints that Clinton's jobs-rich economy was built on low-wage jobs.

[DemocratForJustice]

118. The fundamental fact is that when

official reported GDP is adjusted for REAL inflation it has been significantly negative every year since the recession began in 2008.

REAL inflation is at least 4% higher than that officially reported in cpi.
It could be as much as 7% higher.

Recent official GDP growth
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth

There has been NO recovery.

I have updated the op-ed to clarify the matter.

TY for your questions.

You have helped me make a much better case.

[byeya]

103. U-6 was a 4 month high of 14.3%

The part time jobs that were created were classed under involuntary part-timers looking for full time work.

[ProSense]

107. How

"U-6 was a 4 month high of 14.3%

The part time jobs that were created were classed under involuntary part-timers looking for full time work."

...does a " 4 month high" indicate "no recovery" when it climbed to nearly 17 percent?

It was 13.8 in May.

[stevenleser]

98. You are mixing up several concepts

Recession and Recovery have specific meanings. Those meanings are not tied to household median income. If it was, your graph could be interpreted to mean there has never been a recession since 1955. We know that's not true.

There is nothing wrong with complaining about how there is an ongoing problem in the US with incomes for the 99% being stagnant vs. incomes for the 1% which are exploding since 1970. I talk about that all the time and that problem exists whether the economy is growing or shrinking.

Likewise, inflation is not dependent on the economic cycle. We can have inflation with expansion, inflation with contraction, deflation with expansion (although that's rare) and deflation with contraction.

[DemocratForJustice]

114. Not really

The main thrust is that reported official GDP growth when adjusted for REAL inflation has been negative for the last 4 years, so there hasn't been any sort of recovery.

I then also bat back any counter arguments about new jobs being created or house price rises etc.

There hasn't been any recovery in total wages.
Disposable incomes are continuing their relentless decline.

Just about everybody except a select few of the top 0.5% that are getting massive amounts of government handouts (like the big banks) is now worse off than they were in 2009.

Corporate Welfare now amounts to over $2.5tn a year.
And it is being taken from ordinary Americans and given to the wealthy elites.
The politicians etc. get some crumbs from the table.

It's not surprising that the 99% are worse off.

There will never be an economic recovery until disposable incomes of ordinary people start rising again and not plummeting like they have for the last several years.

[stevenleser]

117. You can't change the rules midstream and expect it to mean something. No other recovery has been

judged by "Real GDP versus inflation".

That's changing the rules midstream in order to meet a predefined result that you want to meet. You WANT to call this an illegitimate recovery so you are changing the rules to make it seem like it is.

There is plenty to talk about here as I said in my first response to you, just not in terms of the economic cycle.

[DemocratForJustice]

128. If someone asks a question or makes a point

that leads me to make a stronger case - why shouldn't I use it in the Op-ed?

[stevenleser]

153. You can say anything you want to say. If you incorrectly use terms that have definite meanings...

...you're wrong. Recession and expansion have specific meanings we can look up.

As far as GDP adjusted with inflation, that has been up. http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm

[bluestate10]

170. No other recovery has happened with a world full of competitors or with unprecedented

obstruction from one political party. The OP blissfully ignore several powerful shaping factors that, more than fiscal and monetary policy, shape the futures of workers at the low end of the economic spectrum.

[kestrel91316]

102. It's obvious to me that my clients certainly haven't recovered from the

Great Recession yet, so of course neither has my business.

[grantcart]

113. I am sorry for that. I can tell you my business and clients have. I understand

that others are still lagging and wish that we had a Congress that would pass more stimulus until we get back to full employment and see wages start to recover as well.

[bluestate10]

172. Everyone that I deal with are doing better financially today that they were before President

Obama too office. People are happier, even strangers. Happiness is tied directly to how a person is doing financially.

[cthulu2016]

116. Headline generally correct, but some of the OP is woo

Last edited Fri Jul 19, 2013, 03:25 PM - Edit history (1)

Exaggeration is not your friend, particularly when making a case that should be easy.

If "real" inflation was between 6% and 9% while mortgage rates were at 3%-4% then "real" is term of art meaning imaginary.

An increase in housing prices caused by hedge funds buying houses is known, in the economics racket, as an increase in housing prices.

And so on.

The reality is bad enough without invoking exotic stats and all-encompassing arguments.

The economy has not created many jobs above population growth since 2009, GDP has been moribund throughout, demand for poverty assistance like SNAP is steady or still rising.

There has never been much of a recovery and whatever there might have been is at least as likely to run out of steam as to keep going.

[byeya]

121. To bolster your post, the state of NC recently cut the amount paid to unemployed people

and cut the number of weeks the benefits would run.

We know what the House of Representatives is trying to do to SNAP.

[byeya]

120. There are now 50Million people classified as "poor"($11,000/yr for an individual and

$23,000 for a family of four) and 50Million classed as "near-poor($11,000 to $17,000 for an individual)
That's almost one-third of the USA either poor or on the brink.

[DemocratForJustice]

126. And more are joining them every year now (nt)

.

[byeya]

130. It's disheartening that this is happening and no one in power is putting forth a solution.

As seen in Republican controlled states, the power structure is bent on worsening conditions.

[DemocratForJustice]

136. It is extremely disheartening mainly because it would be fairly simple to turn things completely

around.

But nobody wants to change anything because of the huge vested interests and huge money special interests that are determined that nothing should change.

The huge money guys that pay the most in campaign contributions and lobbying are doing very well out of the current system.

No one else is.
The lobbyists and the politicians get a few crumbs from the table.

The subject of my next post - maybe tomorrow.

[ProSense]

135. Census:

The data presented here are from the Current Population Survey (CPS), 2012 Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), the source of official poverty estimates. The CPS ASEC is a sample survey of approximately 100,000 household nationwide. These data reflect conditions in calendar year 2011.

• In 2011, the official poverty rate was 15.0 percent. There were 46.2 million people in poverty.
  
  
• After 3 consecutive years of increases, neither the official poverty rate nor the number of people in poverty were statisti¬cally different from the 2010 estimates1
  
  
• The 2011 poverty rates for most demographic groups examined were not statistically different from their 2010 rates. Poverty rates were lower in 2011 than in 2010 for six groups: Hispanics, males, the foreign-born, nonciti¬zens, people living in the South, and people living inside metropol¬itan statistical areas but outside principal cities. Poverty rates went up between 2010 and 2011 for naturalized citizens.
  
  
• For most groups, the number of people in poverty either decreased or did not show a statistically significant change. The number of people in poverty decreased for noncitizens, people living in the South, and people living inside metropolitan statistical areas but outside principal cities between 2010 and 2011. The number of naturalized citizens in poverty increased.
  
  
• The poverty rate in 2011 for chil¬dren under age 18 was 21.9 per-cent. The poverty rate for people aged 18 to 64 was 13.7 percent, while the rate for people aged 65 and older was 8.7 percent. None of the rates for these age groups were statistically different from their 2010 estimates.2

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/

Go to the "Publications" tab for more information.

Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb12-172.html

Sex

• The poverty rate for males decreased between 2010 and 2011, from 14.0 percent to 13.6 percent, while the poverty rate for females was 16.3 percent, not statistically different from the 2010 estimate.

<...>

Health Insurance Coverage

• The number of people with health insurance increased to 260.2 million in 2011 from 256.6 million in 2010, as did the percentage of people with health insurance (84.3 percent in 2011, 83.7 percent in 2010).
  
  
• The percentage of people covered by private health insurance in 2011 was not statistically different from 2010, at 63.9 percent. This was the first time in the last 10 years that the rate of private health insurance coverage has not decreased. The percentage covered by employment-based health insurance in 2011 was not statistically different from 2010, at 55.1 percent.
  
  
• The percentage of people covered by government health insurance increased from 31.2 percent to 32.2 percent. The percentage covered by Medicaid increased from 15.8 percent in 2010 to 16.5 percent in 2011. The percentage covered by Medicare also rose over the period, from 14.6 percent to 15.2 percent. The percentage covered by Medicaid in 2011 was higher than the percentage covered by Medicare.
  
  
• In 2011, 9.7 percent of children under 19 (7.6 million) were without health insurance. Neither estimate is significantly different from the corresponding 2010 estimate. The uninsured rate also remained statistically unchanged for those age 26 to 34 and people age 45 to 64. It declined, however, for people age 19 to 25, age 35 to 44 and those age 65 and older.
  
  
• The uninsured rate for children in poverty (13.8 percent) was higher than the rate for all children (9.4 percent).
  
  
• In 2011, the uninsured rates decreased as household income increased from 25.4 percent for those in households with annual income less than $25,000 to 7.8 percent in households with income of $75,000 or more.
  
  <...>

- more -

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb12-172.html

Dire information, but I would say a decrease in the poverty rate among most groups between 2010 and 2011 is big news, as is the information on health insurance coverage.

[DemocratForJustice]

137. Wait and see what the poverty rate is going to be this time next year

The American economy is rapidly slowing down, due to the current economic policies of both parties principally :-
keeping all of the over $1.3tn of annual Corporate Welfare
A massive tax hike in 2013 of $200bn on the middle class and below
The massive Federal Reserve printing of $1tn a year

Plus the recession in Europe is going to get a lot worse.
Europe is America's largest export market.

The big banks have just cut their growth forecasts for Q2 GDP in half from 2% to 1% annual rate due to the recent economic data.

Wait and see what the unemployment rates are going to be too.

[Corruption Inc]

138. You just shattered the illusions of the sycophants, politicoes and front groups

They will therefore attack your logic and truth.

Rec'd for the real information!

[Kolesar]

145. It's nonsense ala' "Zerohedge.com"

sad

[ucrdem]

198. Bingo.

Libertarianomics.

[whttevrr]

143. Don't have graphs or anything, but...

You, the OP, took the extra step to ALL CAP the word ANY in your title. That right there invalidates your information that follows. Any evidence of recovery invalidates your argument.

If you had said the recovery was anemic, slow, almost non-existent... or something like that, you probably would be cut some slack. But repeatedly you post in absolutes that are refuted by the very sources you link to. It's kinda like Chicken little running around saying the sky is falling.

The sky is kinda fucked up. There is income inequality. And it is a struggle to survive for millions of Americans. But we are not Donner Party fucked just yet. There is still hope. Even now. My own personal situation points towards hope. I am median. But that has less to do with the economic situation and more to do with my own choices in years past.

Given a modicum of effort I should be able to get to a six figure income some time before I stroke out and die. And, I had to pretty much start from scratch about 6 years ago. My own personal choices are not always up to par. For instance, instead of studying for my CCNA exam in August, I pissed away... holy fuck! 1:20-7ish = 6, Damn... 6 fucking hours reading internet crap... Because 5 zettabytes most certainly will contain 20+ pettabytes per day... {tangent}

See? Scattered... much like your post. It is buckshot sprayed onto the inter tubes to prove a specific point. It doesn't work that way.

You cannot say there is absolutely no economic recovery at all. Because the personal stories of several posters here, including myself, invalidate your claim with actual reality. You've mentioned "real" many times. Well Many people have witnessed real personal economic recovery in the last couple years.

Should more be done?

Hell yeah!?

But don't write to us like we are idiots because we fault the inherent falseness of your core claim. It is not personal...


It is just the truth.

[Safetykitten]

208. Kick for truth.

[Hydra]

151. Welcome to active posting on DU!

And excellent post. I see all of the usual suspects are here telling us it's all fine, but keep in mind most of them would have agreed with you if this was still a Bush Administration.

Keep at it and refining your information- we need to hard numbers to show where we are going and why we need a real change.

[DemocratForJustice]

188. TY for the encouragement

[bluestate10]

158. Put up as many charts as you want. The argument being proposed is fucking insane.

Using such logic, running from a bear at 15 mph to get to the nearest safe point is no better than standing still waiting to get eaten. Is the recovery as robust as many desire? No. But given the historical obstruction that the President has faced, his ability to move the country forward to the extent that he has is impressive. My personal situation is way better now than it was in 2009 before President Obama took the oath. I remember watching his inauguration speech thinking whether he stop the downward spiral in the economy, yet, my primary thought was whether the years of effort that I ad put in to build assets would be mostly wiped out by the careless indifference of the President before President Obama took office.

[DemocratForJustice]

191. I am putting together a post with my suggestions as to how to turn the American economy around

Basically it involves cutting over $1.3tn of annual Corporate Welfare and giving that huge amount of money to ordinary people instead.

Ordinary people will mostly spend that extra money in the American economy.

That would have a huge positive impact on job creation, instead of the current situation of it going to the bottom line profits of large corporations and most of it going to the top 1%.

Most of that will go to the top 0.1%, who will hide a lot of it away in trust funds and offshore tax shelters where it will help no one, except themselves.

[tritsofme]

162. Wow, there's so much garbage in this OP, it's not even worth it.

[woo me with science]

164. That's because it was never meant to be a recovery for the people.

It was a deliberate restructuring of where the money goes.

If it weren't deliberate, the devastation of the middle class, the driving of millions of Americans into poverty, would be considered a crisis of national proportions. We would see bullhorns a la 9/11 promising action to fix the catastrophe.

What is on the horizon instead? What is our President interested in instead?

Austerity. Grand Bargains. Cutting Social Security. A massive new "free trade" agreement that will eliminate jobs, slash salaries and benefits, and drive the standard of living down even further. And more spying and assaults on our Constitutional protections to ensure that Americans cannot fight back.

[DemocratForJustice]

192. I absolutely 100% agree with you

Thank you for your comment.

[roamer65]

169. Here is the cold hard truth.

All the zero interest rates, all the QE, etc, etc...will not stimulate the economy in any meaningful way. Why? Because most of our economy has been exported to SE Asia and India. There is almost nothing left to stimulate in the USA. If you think I'm wrong...then I have one thing to say to you.

Detroit.

All the money creation does nothing more than drive up prices, making the problem even worse for lower and middle income Americans.

We need to get out of NAFTA and WTO and get realistic, fair trade policies...period.

[bluestate10]

175. The problem is, do you expect the rest of the world to allow us to make them poorer

so that our middle class and poor will be better off? That question may be offensive to some, but it is the very question that our nation faces. The fact is, jobs that used to lift poorly educated people into the middle class are gone and won't be coming back. Today, even a great education in low demand fields doom young people to a life of underemployment and debt. But, who seriously think that Chinese that have moved into that country's middle class will stand by while we use trade policy to push them back into poverty? My solution is for the Chinese government to use it's large reserves of cash to stimulate demand in China. The same goes for India. Internally fueled economic growth in China and India will drag the rest of the world upward economically, even our country.

[roamer65]

179. We have no say over Chinese economic policy.

Nor should they have a say over ours. We need to look after the well-being and interests of our own people, not the Chinese nor the Indians. If we don't there will be many more bankruptcies than Detroit in our future and probably no United States of America either.

The warnings signs are all around us. We cannot revive our economy even with the stimulus of zero interest rate Fed money and $85bln of QE a month. Think about it everyone.

[stevenleser]

213. Yes we do, and yes they have a say over ours. Our economies are too interconnected for it to be

otherwise.

They express their concern quite often about our debt and the strength of our currency, which they hope stays high since they are owed money from us in that currency. We in turn express concern to them about economic liberalization and trade practices. and various other issues, like:

http://www.iie.com/publications/wp/wp.cfm?ResearchID=162
Bilateral Issues

The US government interacts with China bilaterally in two basic ways. The first is proactively through US policies to encourage economic reform in China, and China's responsible integration into the international economy. The Administration regards technical assistance as the primary channel through which it can influence economic reform in China (and by extension encourage political liberalization). Among the avenues of technical assistance which have recently been created (or revitalized) has been the US-China Joint Economic Committee led by the Treasury Department, with working groups on financial reform and the foreign exchange system. The Securities and Exchange Commission has a group that works on securities regulation, and the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board have a group to provide assistance on banking regulation and the implementation of monetary policy. Private nongovernmental organizations (such as the American Bar Association) also engage in institution building. The primary channel of economic cooperation is private business trade and investment, though.

Similarly, bilateral intergovernmental relations are dominated by a second track of reactive trade conflict, largely a function of China's rapid growth, partially reformed economic system, and the complainant driven US trade policy making system.8 Noland (1996) presents evidence that indicates that bilateral trade conflict is most closely associated with the magnitude of bilateral imbalances and the extent of intra-industry trade.9 In light of China's large and rapidly growing bilateral surplus with the US and the relative predominance of interindustry trade over intraindustry trade in bilateral exchange, the "fundamentals" are in place for highly contentious relations.

[DemocratForJustice]

189. I totally agree with you

As a minimum trade agreements should be renegotiated to better favor ordinary Americans.

Have you seen the disaster that is unfolding in the secret TPP negotiations?
Some of it has recently been reported.
It basically allows multinationals to over ride national sovereignty and domestic laws and will cost ordinary Americans dear.

[roamer65]

210. I have not seen it.

Sounds very ominous. Not good.
I will look for it. Thx.

[awoke_in_2003]

184. The only people doing better...

are the wealthy. That is what happens when legislation has been rigged for the last 30 years.

[DemocratForJustice]

195. Yep. These charts show exactly what has been going on for the last 30 years

and what went on before that.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RBJ23r3jdSo/UTDBK7FislI/AAAAAAAAAdA/qhk6gNcatv0/s640/Family+income.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EoQdjasE9Bo/UUIXP4DIr9I/AAAAAAAAAdo/Lgtki5BZTHY/s640/income+changes+since+1970.png

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KXDjoGo-rjU/UCDyTMK9XJI/AAAAAAAAABU/RnD5ugenkYI/s1600/CEO+to+employee+pay.jpg



I think I will do a separate Op-Ed about income inequality.
It is certainly a good topic.

[ucrdem]

193. The gospel according to Peter G. Peterson: cut debt, eliminate safety net, and lower taxes.

According to wikipedia "Peterson has been named the most influential billionaire in U.S. politics." He's also an 87-year old crank who has been preaching his anti-Social Security gospel since he worked for Nixon as Commerce Secretary in 72-73. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_George_Peterson

I realize PGPF is not necessarily your only source but I noticed its logo on one of the graphs you posted:



Basically if this is where you're getting your material you might as well be posting at Infowars or the Daily Paul. JMHO, YMMV.

[DemocratForJustice]

196. A number of other sources say exactly the same things

This was just the best chart that I have seen - summarizing the situation.

I did not know who PGPF were - thanks for letting me know.

[ucrdem]

197. Billionaires have deep pockets

and can afford to fund a foundation or two, or a politician named Paul or two.

[DemocratForJustice]

199. But the same data can be found at places like

the IMF and the World Bank.

It's just not put together so concisely at those places.

[DemocratForJustice]

200. I do agree with you that Foundations and "think tanks"

are largely there to spread propaganda and there are a large number of them.

Rockefeller Foundation
Ford Foundation
Carnegie Foundation
Brookings Institute
American Enterprise Institute
Heritage Foundation
Hudson Institute
etc. etc. etc.

The list is almost endless.

[ucrdem]

217. THANK YOU MIRT

My sentiments exactly:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=306021&sub=trans

p.s.

[NuclearDem]

201. There hasn't been a recovery at all.

Oh, jobs have been added.

But it's not a recovery--it's enslavement.

[jazzimov]

204. ShadowStats?!?!?!?

Put the crack-pipe down, and step away.

[woo me with science]

211. kick

[ucrdem]

218. I'm afraid you're kicking a dead horse:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=306021&sub=trans

Very dead.

[zappaman]

219. How sad.

Well, he got a lot of fans here in a brief amount of time...

[ucrdem]

220. Oh he'll be back.

Here are a couple of his earlier masterpieces:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3068154

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3080227

Very industrious, this one.