Happy Days Are Here Again - as Long as You Ignore the Jobs Crisis

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truth-out.org/happy-days-are-here-again-as-long-as-you-ignore-jobs-crisis67313

If Tina Turner was to reprise her 1980’s hit in 2011, it would surely be called, “What’s jobs got to do with it?” Unemployment and underemployment remain dangerously high, at around 17 percent, but you wouldn’t know it listening to the optimism ringing out from Wall Street to Washington last week. The New York Stock Exchange flirted with 12,000, a level not seen since 2008, everyone celebrated economic growth data, and the annual gathering of global finance and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was dominated by declarations of an American rebound. A fundamental disconnect between the finance economy and the real one couldn’t be more apparent.

Wall Street may be signaling that the economy is on a pre-recession roll, but in actuality most Americans will not see a return to prosperity for years, due to the ongoing jobs crisis. America is not built for long-term, structural unemployment (and the events in the Middle East show what happens when economic stagnation festers). In order to create employment and opportunity for everyone, the country’s political leaders need to accept that the interests of average people and the top 1 percent are divergent, not convergent. Unfortunately, there is every indication that they will continue to do the opposite.

On Friday, the Commerce Department announced that in the last three months of 2010, the economy grew at 3.2 percent and, for the full year of 2010, at 2.9 percent. In response, The New York Times trumpeted, “US Economic Growth Bounces Back to Rate Seen Before the Recession.” The Wall Street Journal chimed in on its front page with, “Economy Picks Up Steam, Output Returns to ‘07 Levels.” Sensing that 4th Quarter growth would be strong, by midweek the Dow had achieved a three-year high. In investors’ eyes, America had come full circle.

On the same day as the Commerce Department’s GDP release, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, speaking at the Davos meeting, expressed his “confidence … in a sustainable expansion” and faith in America’s avoidance of a double-dip recession.

More at the link --

[Autumn]

1. If Wall Street is happy.it's all good

for the have mores. The rest of us? Suck it up. Sacrifice.

[leftstreet]

2. Yippee for Jobless Recoveries!

:banghead:


K&R