Sunday, September 23, 2012

Recession Nearly Over

According to Townhall, the recession must be nearly over as the initial claims for unemployment are now down to only 30% higher than they were when the Dems took over the House and Senate in 2006:

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3 comments:

The Troll said...

The recession ended in June 2009.

Not only has the recession been over for over 3 years, but according to The Fiscal Times on June 13, 2011

- Corporations have recouped 100 percent of profits lost in the recession
- GDP has regained its pre-recession level with 7.3 million fewer workers
- Stock prices have nearly doubled from their recession lows


The real problem facing businesses today is that overpaid working class

"Compensation policies have gotten woefully out of whack, such that wages for some workers in some jobs greatly exceed what the market says those jobs are worth. ... Workers with many years of service have seen their wages grow in a steady trajectory year after year, fueled by adjustments for inflation as well as annual merit raises that often surpass the rate of inflation, without any increase in responsibilities or required skills. Repeated enough times, these compensation increases can morph into an exorbitant trend."

Lest anyone think the writers -- Harry Hawkes, Albert Kent and Vikas Bhalla -- are referring to executives (whose salaries have risen 23 percent in the past two years along -- that is, during the Great Recession and its aftermath), their example is named Joe the Mechanic. Messers. Hawkes, Kent and Bhalla are unique in many respects, not the least of which is they are the only people to have noticed income growth in the nation's middle class.


So

- corporate profits are up
- GDP is up
- the stock market is up
- corporate executive pay is up

By what measure are we in a recession? This sounds like Ayn Rand's vision of Utopia.

September 23, 2012 at 8:31 PM
Billll said...

http://moonbattery.com/?p=18087

September 24, 2012 at 7:57 PM
The Troll said...

So what?

- unemployed Americans
- unemployment rate
- long-term unemployed
- middle class income
- gas prices
- home values
- worker health insurance costs
- college tuition
- Americans in poverty
- food stamp recipients
- consumer price index
- federal debt
- debt per person
- "U.S. Global Competitiveness" (whatever that means)

are not criteria that define a recession.

You obviously have no idea what the standard definition of recession is : "two down consecutive quarters of GDP".

The recession ended in June 2009.

Yeah, all those other things suck for the middle and lower classes. But your response does not refute my point : those things don't matter to right-wingers whose policy prescriptions are concerned with protecting businesses and their profits, while ignoring the other two sides of the economic triangle: workers and consumers. *

According to conservative economic theory, once the Job Creatorz™ are doing well, the benefits are supposed to "trickle down" to the rest of us.

So where's the trickling down that was supposed to happen?

Corporate profits and executive pay are up to pre-recession levels, and tax rates on the rich are the lowest since the Eisenhower years, when the top marginal rate was 91% vs 50% during Reagan and 35% today (15% for Job Creatorz™ like Mitt Romney).

Instead, the "rising tide" is lifting all yachts, but the people without boats or life-jackets have to tread water.





* I realize that the "economic triangle" is a gross-oversimplification, and there is overlap between the three groups, but this a comment to a blog post, not a comprehensive overview of all the parties that make up the economy.

September 24, 2012 at 9:13 PM

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