Bob Herbert: Long-Term Economic Pain

The pain coursing through American families is all too real and no one seems to know what to do about it. A rigorous new analysis for the Rockefeller Foundation shows that Americans are more economically insecure now than they have been in a quarter of a century, and the trend lines suggest that things will only get worse.

Rampant joblessness and skyrocketing medical costs are among the biggest factors tearing at the very fabric of American economic life so painstakingly put together in the early post-World War II decades.

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Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Children, Consumer/consumer spending, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Housing/Real Estate Market, Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market, Marriage & Family, Politics in General, Psychology, The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--, The U.S. Government

5 comments on “Bob Herbert: Long-Term Economic Pain

  1. jkc1945 says:

    American entrepreneurs will not trade capital for labor until they can be at least somewhat sure of how much of their potential profit will be confiscated by the government. So their money stays in their wallet, and the result is, the working American class suffers.
    This will continue as long as the administration continues to believe that “we can spend our way out of this mess.
    If we want this to change, we must change the “spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax” Administration and supporting Congress. And that is the only way we are going to change this mess.

  2. DonGander says:

    I don’t like these types of articles. It seems to me that they are inferring that one can build an economy devoid of freedom within a moral structure; which is impossible.

    Axiom #3: One can fiddle endlessly with error and not meet with success.

    Don

  3. John Wilkins says:

    Enrepreneurship succeeds when government invests in it. There are numerous examples. It’s a myth that greed is the only motivator.

    If anything, taxing forces businesses to hire labor and encourages investment in the businesses. Otherwise, the wealthy tend to save rather than share the wealth.

    “spend spend spend” is how a business receives its money. I’m not sure how businesses gather income without people spending.

  4. Scatcatpdx says:

    @John Wilkins wrote:
    “Entrepreneurship succeeds when government invests in it.”
    If thats true then I should ave a job and Oregon so called silicon forest should be thriving. Government Cronyism has a poor record in choosing winners and losers. Government investment is a close loop system, it can redistribute wealth. As a result it a net zero or loss because government is investing capital that it took form other entrepreneurs. Robbing Peter to invest in Paul.

    I am seeing this first hand as many company are only offering a few day contact or are sitting on open positions.

  5. John Wilkins says:

    #4 government does not always succeed when it invests. It succeeds sometimes. For example, through the defense department, it created the internet. Has the internet created or assisted businesses?

    That’s an example of government involvement.

    The government might pay for 100 people through the GI bill. A couple might be brilliant and create enterprises. Others might simply be good workers. In either case, the government has helped. Schooling is too expensive for most businesses (they tend to prefer seasoned workers).

    Plainly, the gov vs business ideology is pure bigotry and has little evidence. There is a matter of scale and control; and businesses should bear the consequences of their actions. When they poison the well, they should clean it up on their own dime.