There may be $2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of American corporations globally, but firms show no signs of wanting to spend it in order to hire workers at home, however much Washington might hope they will. Meanwhile, the average American is feeling poorer by the week. “If one looks at unemployment and housing, it’s clear that for all practical purposes, we have yet to fully get out of recession,” says Harvard economist Ken Rogoff, summing up what everyone who doesn’t live inside the Beltway Bubble is thinking. While the White House’s official 2011 growth estimate, locked in before Japan and the oil shock, is still 3.1%, most economic seers are betting on 2.6%. That’s not nearly enough to propel us out of an unemployment crisis that threatens to create a lost generation of workers who can’t find good jobs and may never find them. Welcome to the 2% economy.
When I read this I kept thinking of Newsweek’s rah rah cover story on the American economy in April 2010
The Comeback Country
How America pulled itself back from the brink—and why it’s destined to stay on top
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/08/the-comeback-country.html