We're in a One-and-a-Half Dip Recession [View All]

[laughingliberal]

We're not in a double-dip recession yet. We're in a one and a half dip recession.

Consumer confidence is down. Retail sales are down. Home sales are down. Permits for single-family starts are down. The average work week is down. The only things not down are inventories -- unsold stuff is piling up in warehouses and inventories of unsold homes are rising -- and defaults on loans.

The 1.5 dip recession should be causing alarm bells to ring all over official Washington. It should cause deficit hawks to stop squawking about future debt, blue-dog Democrats to stop acting like Republicans, and mainstream Democrats to get some backbone.

The 1.5 dip recession should cause the president to demand a large-scale national jobs program including a new WPA that gets millions of Americans back to work even if government has to pay their wages directly. Included would be zero-interest loans to strapped states and locales, so they didn't have to cut vital services and raise taxes. They could repay when the economy picked up and revenues came in. The national jobs program would also include a one-year payroll tax holiday on the first $20,000 of income. <snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/were-in-a-one-and-a-half_b_654960.html

It is time to heed the words of Reich. It may be too late but waiting any longer is going to be a disaster.