Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Meditations on “job losses in recent recessions”

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Sadly, I have been saying that  “this is a Depression, not a Recession”  since January of 2008 because of what I saw on Main Street – and wishing that I was wrong.

Sadly, too, the decisions being made in 2008, did not prevent or halt or even slow this down.

It is not just the New Gilded Age elite – though they looted us.  Or deregulation; though without those two forces, I think that any correction would have been mild.

My analysis now points to the following problems:

1.  Loss of the inherent sense of community, by “Community” I mean the sense that we all sink or swim together, and that no person or segment of society is worth more or more important than any other segment; that the more you own, the more you owe everyone else. [the elimination of the Guardian Ad Litems for education not because they weren’t needed, not because no one knew the harm that would be done – but because they were not protected by statute is a good example of a total lack of caring, lack of community, and lack of insight into cause and effect].

2.  Loss of the concept of personal responsibility, honor, and compassion as motive forces.

3.  The appearance, and I now believe, the reality of the almost total absence of long range planning by anyone in authority.

4.  The magical thinking that a “stakeholder” who already wields authority, or controls a huge amount of assets is therefore wiser, kinder, and a repository of the requisite knowledge to make the best decisions – and that the citizens with “on the ground knowledge” are less useful and effective then the entrenched stakeholders.

5.  The mistaken idea that cutting taxes, while the infrastructure, education, safety, and research and development grind to a halt, will somehow magically translate into economic activity of a productive nature.

To turn this around, money needs to go not into the pockets of CEOs as bonus, not into the war chests of banks, but into clean business credit, into colleges – by making sure there is financial aid so all can attend – research and development, and immediate infrastructure repair combined with transparent long range planning done with integrity.

Anyway, thanks lightiris – a picture is worth a thousandt speechs filled with rhetoric.

Just for starters…

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Comments

  1. I’m going to pass the ball to Mike Huckabee on this one:

    We’ve got a crumbling infrastructure. I don’t have to tell people that their traffic is clogged. Every billion dollars we spend on highway construction results in 47,500 jobs. The average American is sitting in traffic 38 hours a year. That’s a full work week, not on vacation, not spent with their kids, stuck in traffic, just sitting there behind the wheel, pointing fingers, usually one at a time, at other motorists and very upset with what’s going on around them in this traffic. The point is we are burning a lot of fuel up in the air, polluting the environment. We’re wasting time. Parents never get home to their kids’ soccer games and recitals. We have bridges falling down on people in the US. Infrastructure in this country has been neglected, whether it’s our airports, our bridges, and our roads, and I don’t think there’s a governor in this state that wouldn’t tell you that you’ll create more jobs and you’ll build it with American workers, American concrete and American steel. That’s stimulus …

    …The problem I have is that taxpayers will spend their $150 billion in rebates [from early 2008] to buy imports from China. So whose economy is being stimulated? What I suggested was, we have a nation whose infrastructure is crumbling. Our roads, bridges, airports clogged up. Texas A&M did a study, found that the average American in an urban setting loses 38 hours a year–that’s a full work week–stuck in traffic because of clogged traffic patterns. Now, $150 billion would expand the interstate by two lanes, I-95, from Bangor, Maine, to Miami. There are places all over America where our infrastructure is choked. Every billion dollars we spend on infrastructure creates 47,500 jobs. And we do it with American labor, American cement, American steel. That’s why I’m saying that that’s a real long-term stimulus package. But it does more than just stimulate the economy, it actually stimulates jobs for Americans for a change…

    …If we’re going to spend $150 billion [as in Bush’s economic stimulus package], I’d like to suggest that maybe we add two lanes of highway from Bangor all the way to Miami on I-95. A third of the United States population lives within 100 miles of that. This nation’s infrastructure is falling apart. And if we built those lanes of highways–with American labor, American steel, American concrete–I believe it would do more to stimulate the economy.

    And the reason I say that is because when we were going through a recession in my state, we were in the middle of a billion-dollar highway construction program that brought about 40,000 jobs and brought a billion dollars of capital into the economy. That’s a long- term stimulus package that I think would have more impact on the American long-term future. And it would keep social capital from being wasted, fuel wasted. A lot of people sit around in traffic every day, and we’ve done nothing about it…

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    p>8%.  What a shame.

  2. that have led to the economic disaster we’re now in.  A couple of other things seem to be involved as well:

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    p>1. The Republican fear of any redistribution of wealth has led to eight years of economic policies that have robbed not only the poor but the middle class.  I think this fear is what is continuing to motivate the otherwise inexplicable GOP opposition to the stimulus package.

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    p>The proof of that, to me, was the agreement in the Senate to scale back President Obama’s middle-class tax cut, according to yesterday’s New York Times.  I never thought I’d see the day that the Republicans would be against a tax cut.  The only explanation can be that they don’t want any money going to the middle class–even if it means wrecking the economy for good.  The entire purpose of the modern day Republican Party appears to be to preserve the existing wealth of an ever-shrinking elite economic class.

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    p>2. Unless and until we’re able to stop pouring billions in public funds each month down the drain that is the Iraq war, we will not be able to save our economy.  This war is making a few favored contractors rich, but diverting our public resources from uses that would truly benefit the economy.

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