NP - The Myth of a Jobless Recovery

[Bekah]

From Alice's link: 

"… an economy is not like a household.  A family can decide to spend less and try to earn more. But in the economy as a whole, spending and earning go together: my spending is your income; your spending is my income. If everyone tries to slash spending at the same time, incomes will fall — and unemployment will soar."

I've always pretty much held that the household cannot live on a "no more spending" budget anyway.  Dad loses his job and although Mom is still working,  the income has been more than halved.   Therefore,  to have a balanced budge in hard times,  Dad says "NO MORE SPENDING except to pay off the credit cards!"   And then Johnny breaks his leg - the family has no insurance.  Time to leave the leg until they can pay for it?  How about the car?   The car breaks down and if there's no transportation Mom's not getting to work -  what is this,  "Oh well" ?   Dad is now seeking employment so it might be time to make  a little investment in a new suit.  Too bad, so sad,  cut out the milk and eggs.  (right.)  

Bekah


On Jan 10, 2013, at 1:04 PM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/opinion/krugman-the-big-fail.html?_r=0
> 
> On Thursday, January 10, 2013, Bekah wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/us/11iht-letter11.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
> 
> WAY OF THE WORLD
> Economists, Consensus and Healthy Debates
> By CHRYSTIA FREELAND | REUTERS
> Published: January 10, 2013
> 
> SAN DIEGO — This is a tough time for experts.   Empowered by the Internet and embittered by the sour economy, many people doubt the wisdom of expert elites.   Journalism sometimes casts further doubt by seeking polarized positions that can draw an attention-grabbing debate, or by taking refuge in he-said-she-said accounts to avoid the harder job of figuring out who’s right.
> 
> Now one tribe of specialists — economists — is striking back.   Concerned that the great unwashed have come to see all economic proposals as being equally valid, theUniversity of Chicago Booth School of Business has led an effort to figure out what economists agree on, where they diverge and how certain they are about their views.
> 
> *
> Much more at the site.
> 
> Bekah
> 
> 
> On Jan 10, 2013, at 6:57 AM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I think you are dead wrong.
> >
> >
> > This We you speak of is not most people in the world. Most people are
> > doing better. First, more are alive and eating better. More live in
> > better environments. These are the facts. There are major problems,
> > sure, most of them caused not by most people but by a small percentage
> > in the West. Get used to it. People outside your  world are doing a
> > lot better and are not going to shut down growth and development to
> > save the planet.
> >
> >
> >
> >> Faith in the MSM economists who completely missed the coming 2008 meltdown
> >> is like Charlie Brown asking Lucy to hold the football. The real myth is
> >> that current economic activity is building something that constitutes real
> >> wealth. We appear to be doing quite the opposite: insuring global climate
> >> disaster (Australia is burning, the arctic melting), maintaining inefficient
> >> oversized homes and wasteful transit with billions of acres of lawns to be
> >> mowed, Fracking, spreading poisons everywhere and then eating from the top
> >> of the food chain, Drilling in the most dangerous conditions after many
> >> disasters, depending on fossil fuels and GE corn for our food supply,
> >> depending on China and other foreign countries for most manufactured goods,
> >> spreading terror through drones spying and military occupation and
> >> intimidation, spending a huge percent of our medical budget on for profit
> >> bureaucracies,  spending trillions we don't have on shit we don't want or
> >> need while going in debt to gangster banksters who own the legal system.
> >> Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe things are just getting better and better.  It's
> >> morning in America...
> >>
> >>
> >> On Jan 9, 2013, at 4:47 PM, Phillip Greenlief wrote:
> >>
> >> in the film, THE CORPORATION, corporations themselves qualify as
> >> psychopaths, when examined by your basic psych intake ...
> >>
> >>
>