Recovery Hype: American Capitalism's Weapon of Mass Distraction

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/27-4


For 99% of us, income has risen just 0.4% over 2009-2012; for the top 1%, it's climbed by 31.4%. (Photograph: Scott Houston/Corbis)

From President Obama on down, defenders of the status quo insist that the US economy has "recovered" or "is recovering". Some actually see the world that way. They inhabit, imagine they inhabit, or plan to soon inhabit the world of the infamous top 1%. Others simply seek security in life by loyally repeating whatever that 1% is saying.

Here is the "recovery" that they see. The top 1% of income-earners in the US took 19% of the national income in 2012, the largest share since 1928. That 1% also saw their average income rise by 31.4% from the current crisis's low point in 2009, through 2012. The top 1% certainly enjoyed a recovery.

In total contrast, income for the other 99% rose by an average of 0.4% during the same period. Many of those people actually saw their earnings drop. That was not a recovery, not even close. For the vast majority of Americans, the recovery hype is just a weapon of mass distraction.

The economic reality is driven home by this graph from the Wall Street Journal.


From 2007 – the last year before the current recession hit – until now, the median income of Americans has dropped by nearly 10% with no recovery evident.

[sendero]

1. There Is No Recovery...

... I've said it 100 times here but it seems that it bears repeating.

How do I define "recovery"? "Recover" means to get back where you were. When everyone that wants to work has a job, and the average job pays what it did in 2007 in inflation-adjusted dollars, we will have "recovered".

I don't expect this to happen, well, ever, but certainly not in the next 10 years.

[Hydra]

4. The recovery could happen tomorrow

But it won't, because that's not the plan.

Mission accomplished.

[sendero]

7. Probably so..

.. but in any event it is important that people not believe the lies. We are not recovering and getting used to the new normal (guaranteed) or the possibility of yet another leg down (quite possible) is important.

If you are living in a world believing in "recovery" you cannot make the right decisions.

[Hydra]

9. Excellent point

Which is why I call out "recovery" stuff when I do, rather than just biting my tongue. The idea that everything is fine and the people who are starving are doing so because they are lazy is repugnant when the 1% are looting our country bank and laughing all the way to the bank.

[TheKentuckian]

5. A bar too low, my friend. We never recovered from Junior's pre-crash debacles we just got a bigger

one to contend with.

My minimum standard is pre-Bush malaise and I'm shooting for pre-Reagan when the looting and redistribution to the top went full steam ahead but I'm not tolerant of the pre-crash Bushshit economy being established as any "new normal" and sure as hell not accepting the current mess as any kind of recovery.

[sendero]

8. I settled on a "conservative" baseline.

... so as not to have pointless arguments about what the baseline should really be.

I agree with you somewhat, however right now 2007 is looking pretty damn good.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Coming Soon!

The Grand Bargain!

[phantom power]

3. It's transparent that there hasn't been a recovery for the 99%

[marmar]

6. Kabuki recovery.

K&R