We had a big snowstorm this last week (January 11th and 12th, 2011) and so I had to suit-up and dig out the driveway again. I found my neighbor Jim out there and we dug our driveways side by side separated by a long pile of snow from previous storms. When the first rush of enthusiasm weakened in the face of the daunting job, we slowed down and began to “shoot the breeze” between our efforts to toss the snow up onto the growing pile. The topic on all our minds in early January was the awful tragedy in Arizona, just a few days earlier (Jan. 8), where nineteen people were shot including US Rpresentative Gabrielle Giffords who was greviously wounded in the head, and six shot fatally, among them US District Chief Judge John Roll. At one juncture, when were were half-way down the driveway, Jim broached the subject.
“Waren’t that a terrible tragedy”, he said, puffing, as he tossed a big shovel full of the white stuff up onto the massive pile between our drives. The tossed snow-remained coherent and broke away to roll down a little way, then hung up in a little snow-gully between our two piles.
“Yeah….terrible!” I said, pausing to watch the unstable ball of snow. The snow clump shuddered then rolled over the top, then picked up speed to cascade down the opposite side of the long pile making a minor avalanche that spread out over my partly dug-out driveway.
“That state has gone too far in a lot of ways,” I said, turning away from the avalanche and continuing to dig. “Too many guns allowed, too few regulations, too little of a safety-net to help those in need....” I trailed off and went back to the digging.
“But, hey the Constitution says”…began Jim, then he paused as he focused on pushing his shovel-blade deep into a big drift, “they have the right to carry a gun,”he grunted, as he sailed another over-loaded shovel-full up to the top.
I paused to watch the snow land and stay in place. Then I replied, “But, had there been some better social outreach --and fewer guns available in that state, maybe that tragedy might not have happened.” I said firmly, as I finally reached the apron of thick snow that Jim caused to toppled over to my side.
Jim reacted to my comment rapidly...his words were carried on his breath which condensed in the cold air and drifted down the driveway. “We can’t afford all those social programs. Most of them kind o’ people are just lazy. They take them benefits—like--like free healthcare, free college, and, and food-handouts, then they take off and head back home to God knows where. Leavin’ us to pay the tab.”
I was preparing a response, when Jim’s wife Doris called from the opened garage door. “Jim---your brother Marty’s on the ’phone. It’s somthin’ about yer mom!”
Jim stuck his shovel deep into the snow-bank, waved to me, and turned on his booted heel to disappear into the cavernous garage. He said nothing, but when he waved he had a “Well, I-won-that-one!” smirk on his face.
I continued shoveling… and thinking.
I first wondered where he got the patently erroneous idea that someone in Arizona was getting free health care and a cheap college education?
But what irritated me more was: why couldn’t Jim see into the lives of others…and perhaps have a little empathy for those that were less well-off, not so smart, or didn’t have a well-to-do developer for a dad, like Jim had.
The rhythmic scrapes of the shovel on the finally exposed asphalt and the deep breathing must have helped engorge my tired brain cells with plenty of oxygenated blood--for as I dug an idea came to me.
Perhaps the cause of Jim lack of empathy for others, is rooted in the fact that he himself is working hard each day, competing avidly for a smaller and smaller part of the economic pie! Jim’s thinking is, why should some Hispanic or foreign kid get “benefits” when he (Jim) was "bustin' his butt" to make his life a little better, and finding that it was a distinctly uphill battle.
It’s true, Jim and Doris do have a nice house, two new cars and two kids in high school. But to support that life style, both have full-time jobs and take overtime when they can get it. I also know that Jim’s house is mortgaged to the hilt, and he has thick payment books for those two new cars. Jim and Doris did work hard to keep up their lifestyle--that was true.
They had to struggle, because it has become more and more difficult to attain a “middle class” life style in America. Over the last several decades the middle class has been competing for a smaller and smaller piece of the economic pie. Since the 1970s the situation of those in the middle of the economic scale has deteriorated. In order to maintain their lifestyles these folks have had to resort to working a second job, remortgaging their homes to raise cash, and encouraging their wives into the market place too.
What went wrong with the American dream? A good part of the discontent in America is related to our present unequal distribution of wealth. You (reader) may not realize it, since the super-wealthy represent only one in a hundred of us, but they are sequestering a larger and larger part of the economic pie every year. As Americans, we believe in free-enterprise and a fair chance for everyone. We envision ourselves (and our kids) with a fair chance to grab the brass ring on our only go-around on the economic Ferris wheel. We imagine each of us having the same chance to climb up the economic ladder. But that view is outdated and is not the reality of the game we are playing now. How can it be, when the part of the pie middle class Americans are all competing for gets smaller and smaller each year? When the kids of the rich start their ball game from third base and our kids still must begin their run on first—and the distance to first base is getting longer and longer each year.
I read not so long a go an interesting piece by Steven Pearlstein “The Costs of Rising Economic Inequality”. (Wednesday, October 6, 2010, The costs of rising economic inequality, in: www.washingtonpost.com). Pearlstein pointed out the disturbing fact that the top one percent (1%) of families in economic ranking took home more that 23% of the nation’s wealth. That is right! One percent of the population has sequestered nearly one fourth of the Nation’s wealth, leaving the remainder--the other 99% left only with 77% of the total. (In another analysis of the data we learn that the top ten percent (10%) command more than two-thirds of the nation’s wealth. Thus if the top ten percent takes home 66 2/3 %, that means the bottom 80% must be scrambling for the remaining one third of the nation’s wealth.) These figures are the type of monetary wealth distribution you would not expect to find not in the USA--the largest economy in the western world, a nations which spends more on their miliatary than all the other nations in the world combined, but in a mid 20th century banana republic like Honduras or Guatemala (sorry to remind you Hondurans and Guatemalans!). How can that have happened to the USA--the oldest democracy in the world and the world’s wealthiest market economy!
Not so very long ago…in good economic times too…in the 1970s, the top one-percent earners garnered only nine (9%) percent of the total wealth (not 23%). It is important to note that that level of inequality (about 9%) is about where most modern industrialized countries in the western world are at now. Life is not so bad for their "economic royalty". Yet their middle class can live a reasonably full and healthful life. And the comparative figures on longevity, health, and childhood mortality support the fact—that the US with its high wealth inequality lags far behind in these measures of a nation's well-being. So in the last four decades (the period of Republican ascendancy and the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II regimes) the “take” of the oligarchs more than doubled. Is there any question what the Republicans have been attempting to do? Or that they are mostly responsible for these changes?
Today the USA stands out as a great place to be wealthy----if you are! But a bad place for the middle class, and for workers in general. Is that the way we want it to be? Would you want to see your children and grand-children grow up in such a place? I think not.
As Perlstein and others have pointed out, there are some very undesirable results of such inequity. For America which prided herself on her “freedom and equality for all” there can be no equality when we are creating an economic overlord-ship, or an economic “royalty” who live, think, act, and spend their money very differently than the rest of us. The establishment of a class of “economic royals” skews “opportunity, social standing and political power” (as Perlstein states so well). In the face of these facts, can we still honestly proclaim and actually believe our most deeply cherished tenets about “equality for all“? (And that “equality” was always interpreted and understood only as--an equal chance at success. But that equal chance we all hope for may not be there today.)
There are moral and political reasons for caring about this dramatic skewing of wealth, which in the real world leads to a similar skewing of opportunity, social standing, and political power. But according to Perlstein there is also an important economic reason: Too much inequality, he concludes, just like too little, appears to reduce global competitiveness and long-term growth, at least in developed countries like ours.
It’s important for our future and our children’s future that we recognize the pitfalls of economic inequality. Perhaps when we do we will have more empathy for the “other guy” who is struggling too. We must be aware of the economic and political costs of putting too much money in the hands of a few. Perhaps some of these horrible tragedies –often the result of despair and hopelessness-- would fade away too.
Get the picture?
Sunday, February 27, 2011
OF SOAPS, CHEESE, AND MAKING MONEY EX NIHILO
RJ Kalin
January 2011
On a recent tour of our local stores Mrs. K. was annoyed to discover that one of her favorite house-hold products, normally stocked on the "soap and cleaner’ shelves of several local emporia is no longer available. The product--a stovetop cleaning agent-- was before the Great Recession expensive, but easily procured and widely available,but not so now.
“Why can’t I find this item any longer?” she asked in annoyance.
I tried to explain the underlying causes. “Well that product may not have a lot of demand, so Green’s, Walmarts, CVS, True Value, etc. do not wish to replace the stock so quickly, when they are gone. They are simply cutting expenses, by reducing the stock of a product that they must pay for, but may not be able to sell so easily….”
“So then this is just a response to the bad economy?”
“Exactly! It’s a sign of low demand.”
We walked on down the less than fully stocked aisles. I took this rare opportunity to add, "Yes, the low demand is surely the result of the fact that a good portion of the population is under employed or unemployed. Less money out there…less demand for stove-top cleaners and other stuff.”
Right now it is jobs, jobs, jobs that are on everyone’s mind. Today, I read in Portfolio.com, with some alarm that there are five applicants for every job that opens. Also, that there are some 15 million Americans out of work right now, and that nearly half a million have quit trying to find work. The formal joblessness rate is recorded as 9.6%, but that would be much worse were it not for the, nearly 500,000 who simply just quit looking.
Also the inflation rate has dropped down to 1.1% and has been holding steady at this rate for some months. That is well below the 2% rate that is considered desirable.
“That doesn’t sound too threatening. Why should I be concerned with the fact that prices are not rising much?”
“Well the problem is that such a low rate of inflation is and indicator of low consumer demand for goods and services.
“So that’s why I can’t find that “cook-top spray-cleaner, I like to use”?
“Exactly!“
“Some products which are not your big sellers are in lower demand anyway…are simply eliminated off the shelves, as a way to reduce costs and raise profits by the stores.“
“That’s one way to control expenses, but it makes me mad!“
“But more importantly, these circumstances of low demand may develop into what the economists call a “vicious deflationary cycle” in which low consumer demand causes product prices to fall, (or they may be simply eliminated as your cook top cleaner), this causes shoppers (like you and me) to retard purchases since they anticipate the continuing fall in prices (Why should you pay more for some product today when you can get some product cheaper tomorrow?). Then the store-owner, responding to low demand, may decrease prices further, while the products manufacturer or producer who is faced with less orders for his product, sells his stock at lower prices since he has too much of it, and, as well, may decide to slow production. These results exacerbate the problem and result in lower demand for labor in both the production end and in the sales end of the economy, resulting in lay offs, and firings. But job losses and reduced employment only tend to decrease money in circulation, and thus depress demand even further. The end result is a continual spiral downward of demand, as prices fall and employees are laid off. This deflationary spiral can be described as a classic “vicious cycle” or a process, which tends to exacerbate the cause or causes that generate it.
What can the Fed do? I read recently that Ben Bernanke is planning to decrease long-term interest rates (again) and stimulate growth by having the Fed purchase (“soak up”) Treasury Bonds. Treasury Bonds are safe, but they generally do not provide much interest on investment at maturity. So to encourage buyers, the government has to keep interest rates at a level high enough to encourage sales. But that impacts us down the line. So if the Fed were to buy up Treasury Bonds, that would put a cash-infusion into government coffers. It would save some dough too, by keeping interest rates lower. Since the government would have less urgency to sell bonds, they need not encourage buyers by raising interest rates. The down side is that this action would tend to decrease the value of the dollar. So we all have less buying power, particularly those on fixed incomes--like the elderly. That’s why the price of English Stilton cheese and Italian Parmigiana Reggiano have gone through the roof and the markets don’t stock them anymore.
There are times when just dropping the interest rate to zero, doesn’t help. Perhaps that might occur in those times when there is so little demand for stovetop cleaners and expensive cheese. Then there is the option of just printing more money. The government bankers don’t like to use those terms. They are too explicit and revealing. No matter that is what they are really doing. So they have developed the term “quatitative easing”, (QE). QE is a monetary policy used by central bankers to increase the supply of money. (they don’t simply dump the money on some corner on Main Street and let everyone come get it. Though that would be about what is happening. They simply write a check to themselves and drop that into their reserve account and voila! They have more money available created literally out of nothing (ex nihilo). They then use that account to buy government bonds, those awful mortgage-backed securities that no one really knows what they are getting or what they are worth, and corporate bonds or other financial instruments. That puts money into circulation, and hopefully stimulates the economy.
That takes care of the big shots and the bankers on Wall Street. Now if they could only find some way to get the unemployed back to work!
Get the picture?
January 2011
On a recent tour of our local stores Mrs. K. was annoyed to discover that one of her favorite house-hold products, normally stocked on the "soap and cleaner’ shelves of several local emporia is no longer available. The product--a stovetop cleaning agent-- was before the Great Recession expensive, but easily procured and widely available,but not so now.
“Why can’t I find this item any longer?” she asked in annoyance.
I tried to explain the underlying causes. “Well that product may not have a lot of demand, so Green’s, Walmarts, CVS, True Value, etc. do not wish to replace the stock so quickly, when they are gone. They are simply cutting expenses, by reducing the stock of a product that they must pay for, but may not be able to sell so easily….”
“So then this is just a response to the bad economy?”
“Exactly! It’s a sign of low demand.”
We walked on down the less than fully stocked aisles. I took this rare opportunity to add, "Yes, the low demand is surely the result of the fact that a good portion of the population is under employed or unemployed. Less money out there…less demand for stove-top cleaners and other stuff.”
Right now it is jobs, jobs, jobs that are on everyone’s mind. Today, I read in Portfolio.com, with some alarm that there are five applicants for every job that opens. Also, that there are some 15 million Americans out of work right now, and that nearly half a million have quit trying to find work. The formal joblessness rate is recorded as 9.6%, but that would be much worse were it not for the, nearly 500,000 who simply just quit looking.
Also the inflation rate has dropped down to 1.1% and has been holding steady at this rate for some months. That is well below the 2% rate that is considered desirable.
“That doesn’t sound too threatening. Why should I be concerned with the fact that prices are not rising much?”
“Well the problem is that such a low rate of inflation is and indicator of low consumer demand for goods and services.
“So that’s why I can’t find that “cook-top spray-cleaner, I like to use”?
“Exactly!“
“Some products which are not your big sellers are in lower demand anyway…are simply eliminated off the shelves, as a way to reduce costs and raise profits by the stores.“
“That’s one way to control expenses, but it makes me mad!“
“But more importantly, these circumstances of low demand may develop into what the economists call a “vicious deflationary cycle” in which low consumer demand causes product prices to fall, (or they may be simply eliminated as your cook top cleaner), this causes shoppers (like you and me) to retard purchases since they anticipate the continuing fall in prices (Why should you pay more for some product today when you can get some product cheaper tomorrow?). Then the store-owner, responding to low demand, may decrease prices further, while the products manufacturer or producer who is faced with less orders for his product, sells his stock at lower prices since he has too much of it, and, as well, may decide to slow production. These results exacerbate the problem and result in lower demand for labor in both the production end and in the sales end of the economy, resulting in lay offs, and firings. But job losses and reduced employment only tend to decrease money in circulation, and thus depress demand even further. The end result is a continual spiral downward of demand, as prices fall and employees are laid off. This deflationary spiral can be described as a classic “vicious cycle” or a process, which tends to exacerbate the cause or causes that generate it.
What can the Fed do? I read recently that Ben Bernanke is planning to decrease long-term interest rates (again) and stimulate growth by having the Fed purchase (“soak up”) Treasury Bonds. Treasury Bonds are safe, but they generally do not provide much interest on investment at maturity. So to encourage buyers, the government has to keep interest rates at a level high enough to encourage sales. But that impacts us down the line. So if the Fed were to buy up Treasury Bonds, that would put a cash-infusion into government coffers. It would save some dough too, by keeping interest rates lower. Since the government would have less urgency to sell bonds, they need not encourage buyers by raising interest rates. The down side is that this action would tend to decrease the value of the dollar. So we all have less buying power, particularly those on fixed incomes--like the elderly. That’s why the price of English Stilton cheese and Italian Parmigiana Reggiano have gone through the roof and the markets don’t stock them anymore.
There are times when just dropping the interest rate to zero, doesn’t help. Perhaps that might occur in those times when there is so little demand for stovetop cleaners and expensive cheese. Then there is the option of just printing more money. The government bankers don’t like to use those terms. They are too explicit and revealing. No matter that is what they are really doing. So they have developed the term “quatitative easing”, (QE). QE is a monetary policy used by central bankers to increase the supply of money. (they don’t simply dump the money on some corner on Main Street and let everyone come get it. Though that would be about what is happening. They simply write a check to themselves and drop that into their reserve account and voila! They have more money available created literally out of nothing (ex nihilo). They then use that account to buy government bonds, those awful mortgage-backed securities that no one really knows what they are getting or what they are worth, and corporate bonds or other financial instruments. That puts money into circulation, and hopefully stimulates the economy.
That takes care of the big shots and the bankers on Wall Street. Now if they could only find some way to get the unemployed back to work!
Get the picture?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
THE NATION'S DISCONTENT
February 25, 2011
Today our TV screens are full of the unrest in Wisonsin and elsewhere across the nation. One does not need to be a seer to understand the connection between these events and the causes of the Great Recession of 2008--unfettered greed, unregulated financial institutions, lack of government oversight, and Congressionalcomplicty. But today the perpetrators and guilty parties on Wall Street—and the super-wealthy elites--are still functioning in the same way and are doing fine--the market was up on Friday.
As Noam Chomsky puts it: "The population in the United States is angry, frustrated and full of fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street are just doing fine. They're the ones who created the current crisis. They're the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They're coming out stronger and richer than ever. But everything's fine - as long as the population is passive."
Yes the populance is apathetic and passive. The poor average "Joe and Jane" somehow continue to identify with this shadowy group of oligarchs. Perhaps they simply do not know who the perpetrators are. These passive citizens must be accosted thus. "No you fool. You are not one of the superwealthy! Why do you think that you are an elite? Because you and your wife both have full time jobs and perhaps both scramble (slave)at a second job and take regular overtime when you can get it--just to maintain the status quo? So perhaps you pull down enough income to buy a big car and a wide-screen TV (on time)and maybe send your eldest off to college? That does not put you in a class with these elite folks. They don't live here. You don’t see them in our town. They don’t buy food in our supermarkets, or appliances, or products in the local Sears, Walmarts or Targets. They are not part of our local economy. They do not spend money like we do. Wise up dummy!"
There is much discontent and too much passivity, alas caused by ignorance. The elites and superwealthy—the oligarchs—who caused our pain, they live on untouched by it. With their excessive wealth they control the story-line the media and the Congress---and with their wealth continue to garner more political power. They pursue their greedy, short-term goals with their wealth. But these self-serving motives do not serve the nation well and are not coincident with the aims of those who would make try to make this nation a better place to live a full life, to raise our children to aspire to the American dream.
But the brutal “solutions” the oligarchs and their paid minions propose do have an ulterior motive.
It’s clear what the Republicans are doing in Wisconsin and elsewhere. They are attempting to break the back of the unions, undermine laws which might restrain their efforts to maximize profits and, of course, to decrease their taxes. Their actions and motives are regressive. They attempt to move us backward--into the 19th century. They dig us deeper into the financial and political hole we find our selves in today.
In regard to the events in Wisconis: Just when we desperately need a better-educated workforce to compete globally—the Republicans want to fire teachers, crowd school classes, eliminate essential educational programs and literally gut the nation’s school systems. Their actions will not make us a stronger, wiser, more prosperous nation. But it is very likely to make the top 10% of wage earner the ones that now garner nearly two thirds of the wealth of this nation, richer and even more powerful leaving the bottom 90% of the population with only one-third of the nation’s output in wages to scramble over.
Get the picture?
Think about it!
.
Today our TV screens are full of the unrest in Wisonsin and elsewhere across the nation. One does not need to be a seer to understand the connection between these events and the causes of the Great Recession of 2008--unfettered greed, unregulated financial institutions, lack of government oversight, and Congressionalcomplicty. But today the perpetrators and guilty parties on Wall Street—and the super-wealthy elites--are still functioning in the same way and are doing fine--the market was up on Friday.
As Noam Chomsky puts it: "The population in the United States is angry, frustrated and full of fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street are just doing fine. They're the ones who created the current crisis. They're the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They're coming out stronger and richer than ever. But everything's fine - as long as the population is passive."
Yes the populance is apathetic and passive. The poor average "Joe and Jane" somehow continue to identify with this shadowy group of oligarchs. Perhaps they simply do not know who the perpetrators are. These passive citizens must be accosted thus. "No you fool. You are not one of the superwealthy! Why do you think that you are an elite? Because you and your wife both have full time jobs and perhaps both scramble (slave)at a second job and take regular overtime when you can get it--just to maintain the status quo? So perhaps you pull down enough income to buy a big car and a wide-screen TV (on time)and maybe send your eldest off to college? That does not put you in a class with these elite folks. They don't live here. You don’t see them in our town. They don’t buy food in our supermarkets, or appliances, or products in the local Sears, Walmarts or Targets. They are not part of our local economy. They do not spend money like we do. Wise up dummy!"
There is much discontent and too much passivity, alas caused by ignorance. The elites and superwealthy—the oligarchs—who caused our pain, they live on untouched by it. With their excessive wealth they control the story-line the media and the Congress---and with their wealth continue to garner more political power. They pursue their greedy, short-term goals with their wealth. But these self-serving motives do not serve the nation well and are not coincident with the aims of those who would make try to make this nation a better place to live a full life, to raise our children to aspire to the American dream.
But the brutal “solutions” the oligarchs and their paid minions propose do have an ulterior motive.
It’s clear what the Republicans are doing in Wisconsin and elsewhere. They are attempting to break the back of the unions, undermine laws which might restrain their efforts to maximize profits and, of course, to decrease their taxes. Their actions and motives are regressive. They attempt to move us backward--into the 19th century. They dig us deeper into the financial and political hole we find our selves in today.
In regard to the events in Wisconis: Just when we desperately need a better-educated workforce to compete globally—the Republicans want to fire teachers, crowd school classes, eliminate essential educational programs and literally gut the nation’s school systems. Their actions will not make us a stronger, wiser, more prosperous nation. But it is very likely to make the top 10% of wage earner the ones that now garner nearly two thirds of the wealth of this nation, richer and even more powerful leaving the bottom 90% of the population with only one-third of the nation’s output in wages to scramble over.
Get the picture?
Think about it!
.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN NEW JOBS DATA FROM THE GOVERNMENT
I’m not a great advocate for Germany. OK my grandmother’s parents did come from Bavaria, and I did study the language in college, but all I remember of it is that we had to read some beautiful poetry by Freidrich von Schiller. (I recall the “Alpine Hunter“ in which God asks….“Earth has room for all to dwell,--"Why pursue my loved gazelle?") Perhaps Schiller's poem should be read by some of our economic gurus. Perhaps it will make them think more about the need of sharing too! But what makes me tout that wealthy central European nation these days is not the faint memories of poetry and Schiller's lines, but their economic policies. First, and importantly they are in the business of actually making things--to sell abroad. Second, they need their workers and wisely care about their wellbeing. Unlike the USA, where the manufacturing sector is nearly moribund--the Germans still have a thriving engineering, machining, and manufacturing sectors which today are booming. Their unemployment is low. Their export products out-compete those made in Japan and China, yet they pay their workers well and somehow, their companies continue tp make profits too. [Someone has to stick that up the noses of the CEOs of our economic giants so they get the full scent of that important fact (paying higher wages does not mean you can not compete)--such as the US giant GE which now "off-shores" so much of its work that it now generates less than half of its profits here in the US.] They (the Germans) have a well established national social safety net. Health care, child-care and elder care are all part of their economic equation. Unlike us, they have no trade deficit. They sell more than they import (or did so last year at least). But their birthrate is quite low, about 1.38 births per couple. Over the years Germans are expected to decline in population. Thus they now need and will continue to seek new labor. A recent study concluded that they will require an additional two million workers in the coming nine years! That works out to slightly more than 222,000 new workers each year up to 2020. And those figure are for a nation of only 82 million.
Since the 2008 collapse we lost eight million jobs! That's one out of every ten Germans in Germany. But here we are in the USA, some 310 million strong and this last month (January 2011) our businesses reported adding only 36,000 "new" jobs! That with some 17 million under or unemployed according to some reports. For us, that was not even enough to off-set the 120,000 wet-behind-the-ears young workers entering the workforce each month. To get those eight million jobs back over a period of ten years…we would need nearly 70,000 (actually 66,660) new jobs per month---that is over the 120,000 new workers we generate each month. That is a total of nearly 190,000 new jobs each month…and remember--even with those figures---we won’t get back to “full” employment we had prior to 2008for ten years! So when you see figures like those--that is--close to 200,000 new jobs--in the monthly report on employment--then you may take a deep breath and begin to feel---finally, we are on the way to better economic health.
Since the 2008 collapse we lost eight million jobs! That's one out of every ten Germans in Germany. But here we are in the USA, some 310 million strong and this last month (January 2011) our businesses reported adding only 36,000 "new" jobs! That with some 17 million under or unemployed according to some reports. For us, that was not even enough to off-set the 120,000 wet-behind-the-ears young workers entering the workforce each month. To get those eight million jobs back over a period of ten years…we would need nearly 70,000 (actually 66,660) new jobs per month---that is over the 120,000 new workers we generate each month. That is a total of nearly 190,000 new jobs each month…and remember--even with those figures---we won’t get back to “full” employment we had prior to 2008for ten years! So when you see figures like those--that is--close to 200,000 new jobs--in the monthly report on employment--then you may take a deep breath and begin to feel---finally, we are on the way to better economic health.
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