Re: SC89

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13109

The Economic Crisis: No, this will not be a Normal Cyclical Recovery

.............Even my anecdotal experience contradicts Altman. Throughout the past decade, in conversations with fellow workers, neighbors, friends, and relatives, not one single time have I heard anyone boast about his/her increased feelings of wealth. They did, however, complain about the increased costs of essential products and services and the lowering of the real-dollar value of their incomes. They did not borrow because they felt wealthier; they borrowed to supplement their declining incomes in an inflationary economy. And bankers enabled them, encouraged them, to do it by offering easy loans with low payments without ever revealing the true costs of those loans. Consumers borrowed not because they felt wealthier, they borrowed because they needed the money. And when the Ponzi bankers' schemes brought down the economy, repaying the loans became impossible, job losses eliminated incomes, and consumer purchasing declined. Unless jobs are generated that provide sufficient income to regenerate a consuming economy, this will not be a normal cyclical recovery.

It, however, is not obvious that such jobs will materialize. Over the last quarter century, American business has moved myriad higher paying jobs to foreign countries which depend upon American consumers to purchase the products produced for the American companies that moved their manufacturing overseas. Even Obama says that these jobs are not coming back. The infrastructure to recreate these jobs no longer exists in America. The businesses that still provide such jobs are asking, in some cases requiring, workers to work for lower wages. The lost jobs and lowered wages mean lower consumption for the unforeseeable future. When the big three automobile companies reduce their workforces and pay lower wages, they are, in reality, reducing the market not only for automobiles but also for products and services of all kinds. So how can bankers be expected to increase lending? Who will the credit worthy borrowers be? Certainly not the people without jobs or with reduced incomes or with reduced credit scores because of recent defaults. Certainly not businesses with fewer sales and lower profits. The lending will not materialize no matter how the failing banks are recapitalized. Furthermore, the number of jobs that need to be created for a recovery is a multiple of the number lost if the wages paid by the new jobs is less than those paid by the lost jobs. So no, this will not be a normal cyclical recovery.

Some economists have begun to speak of another "jobless recovery." I can't even imagine what that could mean? About three quarters of the American economy was driven by consumption. Without a regeneration of the levels of consumption needed to drive this portion of the economy, nothing that can truly be called a recovery can happen. The way out of this crisis is not to recapitalize the banks, but rather to recapitalize consumers. Given the political ideologies active in the United States of America, I doubt that that will ever happen. After all, the business of America is business, not the welfare of its people.

Economists and politicians are blaming this crisis on faulty practices carried out by the financial industry. And no one has pointed out how retirement investment plans such as 401Ks regularly pumped money into the stock market and contributed to the bubble. These practices may have precipitated the crisis, but given the assault on the wages of working class Americans and the shifting of higher-paying jobs to foreign countries, an economic collapse, sooner or later, was inevitable. Anyone who can perform simple arithmetical calculations should have known it.

When a nation consigns its people to working for meager wages, its prosperity is doomed. The Congress, at the behest of corporate lobbyists, wrote into legislation the rules that permitted companies to offshore jobs, reduce real wages, and permit risky financial practices. Therein lies the root cause of this crisis. People merely do what the law allows. Without a prosperous people, America cannot be a prosperous nation. So welcome America to the third-world......

But wait, things economically are starting to turn around, starting to improve, right? I mean Wells Fargo just announced it will have a record 3 Billion profit for its first quarter earnings. With great news like that, the good times must be just around the corner! The 40 billion they got of tax payer bailout money surely has nothing to do with Wells Fargos record performance. Think any of us could show a profit if our businesses were " GIVEN " 40 billion dollars to help the bottom line? All the happy economic talk spewing in the last few weeks from Obama and the corporation controlled media is total BS when you look at the fundamentals of whats really happening to the economic realities of real people in the US and those throughout the world's industrial economies. The latest mental diversion tactic to keep the public focused on meaningless nonsense rather than the real gigantic scams that have occured and are on going ( mass bailouts of the elites and their banks, giant ponzi schemes, AIG, etc ) is that suddenly PIRATE ATTACKS are the most important thing we should be concerned with. Forget the insane mass rippoffs from the banksters and the elites who own these casino's, the real problems that will effect you and your family is PIRATES off the coast of Somalia. Who would have known?