Are You as Tired of This "Recession" As I Am?

[MannyGoldstein]

Recession, my ass. For the 99%, it's a depression, and it's not really getting better. Maybe a little better, but come January, when the federal budget cuts negotiated during last summer's fully-fake budget crisis kick in, we go back down the slide.

Wheee....!

But for the 1%, things are mighty fine.

Last week, the Party Of The 1%, working together with the Other Party Of The 1%, passed Eric Cantor's cutely-named JOBS Act to deregulate banks and corporations some more, and Obama will sign it Thursday (with Cantor at his side! Huzzah!). Last November, the same crowd gave us a "free" trade hat trick projected to destroy hundreds of thousands of US jobs.

Now, I'm doing OK - I have a pretty good job. But we have plenty of friends and family in very shitty situations. Awful situations. And every day folks on DU write of their own desperate situations. And for what ends do we suffer this? So some zillionaire plutocrat can have a few more dollars? I'm sick of this: are you?

I'm tired of seeing working Americans getting fucked. For 30 years this garbage has been going on, for the last 4 years it's been in overdrive. It seems like our party's candidates promise all kinds of stuff when campaigning, but once in office it's all triangulation and excuses. "Nothing else we can do!", they've said for 30 years, as we move further and further to the crazy right. Eisenhower and Nixon look like Communists these days.

Today the insane SCOTUS Justices ruled that we can be stripped searched forever if we get arrested for anything, no matter how minor. Didn't know your dog needed a leash? "Bend over and spread 'em." That's what we get when our party blows off its responsibility to keep insane people out of SCOTUS. Guess what's going to happen to every Occupy protester who dares to exercise their rights this spring? Yeah, that's what I'm guessing too.

This used to be a pretty great country. Not so much, these days. Maybe I'm just having an off day, but I'm getting pretty damned tired of being continually power-scammed. And come the day after elections in November, both parties will return to their dreams of slashing Social Security benefits and raising the Medicare eligibility age.

Very, very, very tired of this bullshit. We need jobs. We need decent wages. We need futures for our children. We need a level playing field against the Economic Royalists that seek to make us their chattel.

[virgogal]

1. This is NOT a depression. In 1932 the unemployment rate was 23.5%. Nothing near that the

past few years. No comparison.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. This time, real unemployment peaked at 17%

and is about 15% now: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm Come pea-eating time next January, we'll see where it goes.

For the 99%, it's a depression.

Do you know that unemployment dropped 40% during FDR's first term?

[virgogal]

4. Yep,I am aware of that,I actually lived through it.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. That must have been an amazing time to live through

Looking back, do you feel that you saw the worst and the best of America in just a few years?

[xtraxritical]

23. WTF does this mean Manny?

Quote "Last week, the Party Of The 1%, working together with the Other Party Of The 1%, passed Eric Cantor's cutely-named JOBS Act to deregulate banks and corporations some more, and Obama will sign it Thursday (with Cantor at his side! Huzzah!)." Do you really think the President's going to sign this? Are you going to vote for Romney? Are you going to give Romney another vote by writing in for somebody? Be smart vote a straight Democratic Ballot and pack the House and Senate with Democrats.

[former9thward]

35. "Do you really think the President's going to sign this? "

Yes he is going to sign it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/house-passes-jobs-act-sends-bill-to-obama/2012/03/27/gIQA9DfZeS_blog.html

[Dragonfli]

37. The President likes this "jobs bill", in fact it follows his core beliefs on economic recovery

I hate to break it to you, but he is a very pro-bank President.
He may still be a Democrat, after all they tell me Max Bacchus is a Democrat, but that doesn't mean he isn't a Reagan Democrat.

Trickle down beliefs and all....

[SATIRical]

32. Words mean things

"Depression" has a generally accepted meaning.

If you want to call this a depression, I guess you can. But you would be just as accurate (i.e. completely not accurate) to call it an apocalypse or, heck, a hamster for that matter.

I sure hope this hamster ends soon....

[MannyGoldstein]

38. A depression for the 99%, I said

BTW, I don't think that there is a generally-accepted definition of a depression. A few folks have different definitions, I believe.

[SATIRical]

39. For depression, yes

But for recession, which is less severe than a depression is generally one of two definitions:

http://economics.about.com/cs/businesscycles/a/depressions.htm

"The standard newspaper definition of a recession is a decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters."

"The Business Cycle Dating Committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides a better way to find out if there is a recession is taking place. This committee determines the amount of business activity in the economy by looking at things like employment, industrial production, real income and wholesale-retail sales. They define a recession as the time when business activity has reached its peak and starts to fall until the time when business activity bottoms out. When the business activity starts to rise again it is called an expansionary period. By this definition, the average recession lasts about a year."

By neither definition are we (99% or even the 100%) in a recession, much less are depression.

[Phlem]

17. In the end doesn't still hurt the affected.

There are more of them than normal and I don't personally hold a high tolerance for their pain.

-p

[bl968]

28. Unemployment numbers

You can only truly believe that only if you choose to wear rose colored glasses.

The current system only counts new filings for unemployment claims. It does not count people who have been on unemployment assistance long term, people who have exhausted their assistance, nor does it count people who have given up the hope of finding a job and simply stopped looking.

Young people are getting out of school and finding that there are no job options available and because they have never held a job they are not counted, and there is no employment assistance there for them.

It's just as bad for the older population who are being systematically denied employment opportunities in a legally unprovable form of age discrimination.

Then you have the whole under-employed issue with people who want full time employment, but are generally only being able find part time jobs with no benefits.

The stats have been severely monkeyed with, for example long-term discouraged workers, were defined out of the official unemployment numbers in 1994.

When you include all of these "unemployed" people you find that the numbers are actually between 22% and 24%, not that far from what they were during the great depression.

[phleshdef]

33. "The current system only counts new filings for unemployment claims." == 100% inaccurate bullshit

You'll have to forgive my obvious irritation here but I'm getting sick of correcting this.

The unemployment percentage that gets reported has nothing to do with who is filing claims for unemployment. Zero. Zip. Not a god damn thing.

Every single month, the BLS does a mini-census of 60,000 households on a rotating schedule. They ask questions about who is employed, who isn't employed and among those who aren't employed, which of them are attempting to find a job. They take the results and they formulate the unemployment percentage numbers.

[Ikonoklast]

34. You beat me to it. That poster is spectacularly wrong.

The metric used to measure unemployment is quite accurate, and fairly sophisticated.



If anyone even cares to edumacate themselve, see: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

From the Department of Labor itself.

[virgogal]

42. But the Depression figures probably were higher too. They had the same

problems that you mentioned.

[eridani]

43. They used honest numbers in 1932

These days, prisoners and the useless hangers-on of the prison industrial complex are not counted as unemployed. Neither are discouraged workers.

[xchrom]

3. Du rec. Nt

[KG]

6. rec.

[bluestate10]

7. Ok, Ok.

I am a center-left democrat, with emphasis on center. Corporations are going to make every penny that they can, that is the nature of for profit corporations that have lost their moral center. There are alternatives. If any DUER go to Walmart or Macy's to shop, they are part of the problem. Change will come when some of us that can afford to refuse to buy items that don't create the maximum number of jobs among americans. It is possible to post ellipical railings against capitalism, but unless we make personal decisions that force change, anything we say or write is simple bullshit.

[MannyGoldstein]

9. I don't shop at Walmart

I'm not wealthy, but i can afford to go elsewhere.

For many, as you seem to agree, it's Walmart or hungry.

[cstanleytech]

30. You can rail against walmart or macys all you want of course but truth be told its both big and

little businesses that are causing alot of the problems right now because while they are all raising their prices they are not raising the average employees paychecks thus the feedback loop will continue until companies both big and small realize this fact.
The government of course could step in and resolve it via higher taxes for companies who are underpaying their workers but I doubt thats gonna happen.

[uponit7771]

8. This is a depression for the middle class, job loss was always generational and housing too

[Motown_Johnny]

10. More, Here in Detroit we never really recovered from the post 9/11 recession

It is simply a way of life here now.

[MannyGoldstein]

11. I hate to ask, but did you ever recover from the 1980s?

I remember a fellow from near Detroit in my dorm in the 1980s - things were already very tough in his part of town back then.

[Motown_Johnny]

25. Yes, the Clinton years weren't bad

but I will admit I lived in Colorado, New York and Ohio from about 1982 - 1996. I was just here to visit from time to time. Even so I am fairly sure that things were better for a while.

[unionworks]

12. But.... but...

...the public has to realize that there's nothing we can do, and anyone who tells them differently is lying! It's like regulating the oil companies so you don't have to spend half of your minimum wage pay for gas to get to work! We are just the government, we are powerless!

[ProSense]

13. We need

this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002493939

I think people like posturing and talking more than they like working toward solutions.

[MannyGoldstein]

14. Why wasn't this bill introduced when

we had majorities in both houses of Congress, and it could pass?

[ProSense]

15. Well,

"Why wasn't this bill introduced when we had majorities in both houses of Congress, and it could pass? "

...I have no idea, but you seem to believe that single payer could pass so that bill has a really good chance.

If Occupy took this up as a proposal, it could gain traction.

[unionworks]

16. K&Red

Excellent article.

[Phlem]

18. This I like.

although I think we have the highest minimum wage in the country (WA State) this would really go far if it was implemented in every state and I'd push it a dollar or 2 more to get it closer to a livable wage for a single person.

-p

[Nye Bevan]

22. What is Obama's position on this proposal? (nt)

[Creideiki]

24. What you suggest (that people like posturing and talking

more than working toward solutions), could be seen as a violation of the TOS.

Vermont has an active Vermont Progressive Party that works to keep Democrats scared by challenging them if they're just random conservatives who put a "D" behind their names.

So, let's be honest--do you really want to advocate for us to start Progressive Parties in all the other states to challenge Democrats and work against their election? Because that would be "working toward solutions". In Vermont, they have even gotten single-payer healthcare signed. Something which the evil conservatives and their spineless "progressive Democratic" allies could not.

Or was your intent to suggest that only Democrats could save us. Because Vermont is showing us that that premise is false.

[ProSense]

26. Don't be

"What you suggest (that people like posturing and talking more than working toward solutions), could be seen as a violation of the TOS. "

...ridiculous.

So, let's be honest--do you really want to advocate for us to start Progressive Parties in all the other states to challenge Democrats and work against their election? Because that would be "working toward solutions". In Vermont, they have even gotten single-payer healthcare signed. Something which the evil conservatives and their spineless "progressive Democratic" allies could not.

Yes, let's be honest: Why are you threatening instead of doing? Go for it. I like Vermont.

I mean, yes, I really do want to see solutions.

[wwytchwood]

19. But Manny!

The real unemployment rate IS near 25%
But the news tells us this is a recovery - yeah, for the 1%

[Honeycombe8]

20. There seem to be a lot more jobs being advertised here in Dallas, and I'm told that there is

more hiring going on. And the stock market is doing really well, which is usu. a good sign and helps the middle class 401K accounts.

[ProSense]

21. Here:

Join The 99% Spring!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002509206

[Skittles]

27. ME ME, MANNY

(re: Trayvon) - if I was to be scared of a "criminal type" most likely to be harming me, it would be a middle-aged white man in a SUIT

[bhikkhu]

29. Economic activity=carbon emissions=climate change=we're screwed as a species in the long-term

...just looking at the bright side of a slower-than-we'd-like recovery.

Things not getting better so fast means things aren't getting worse so fast.

[raouldukelives]

36. That is actually horribly true.

We are where we are because of growth for growths sake. Because of greed & selfishness. The answer isn't more greed. More unprovoked attacks on third world countries to secure resources for exploitation. More drilling and forestry of what little unpolluted areas yet remains of this world. More commuters driving & flying around to push dots around a computer.
It's a frightening dawn ahead. Every day we continue down the same path it only heaps more pain on the people & animals to come.
Maybe it's time to try actually making a better world for people instead of robbing it blind and leaving nothing behind.

[jtuck004]

31. Manny, you are delusional.

Obama is a Democrat. He would never sign a bill that reduces the regulation of financial matters, the same thing that allowed the banks to destroy and continue to destroy tens of millions of people's lives and shake the very security of this country, allowing even more fraud and deception.

I have it on good authority that Thursday he is going to rally the party of the working person, the Democrats, taking on the radical right for the treasonous women-hating-Taliban-like bastards that they are and announce the Genesis of a REAL JOBS act, as much as $15 trillion dollars INVESTED in this country and our people, (100% funded by a non-deductible assessment of previous and future profits of the 5 largest banks, the Sustainable Home Mortgage Act) vocational and adult tuition-free schools established in multiple locations and offering online study in every state teaching electronics, health fields, programming, organic agriculture, philosophy, business communications, cooperative enterprises, and a class called "Accounting and finance in a Den of Thieves". 10 million people are expected to be employed in new jobs and training ranging from infrastructure to research, guaranteed for 2 years. The program will create a pool of mortgages to act as a holding company and stop the foreclosures, forcing any bank which has taken handouts from the government to assist, and the convening of a grand jury to hear the results from the 800 person task force created to investigate financial crimes for the past decade, a task force created by retraining all the Federal Marshalls who used to harass Medical Marijuana patients.

Don't forget Manny, he's a Democrat. You have to quit getting your news from the Onion. And I have to go light my woodstove. I found this great new wood. Puts off a peculiar odor, but I like it. A lot.

[kenny blankenship]

40. We could call it the "Permanent Regrouping!"

if Ongoing Recession is too euphemistic for some folks, and Depression is unacceptably alarming for others, then we could settle on some terminology that portrays the permanent erosion of earning power and job security as a temporary setback that will somehow lead to future strength.

Personally, I've just been calling it the Bipartisan Consensus To Ignore Ameria's Agony (BCTIAA) or the New Normal, for short. People usually seem to know what I mean when I refer to the New Normal. They get that help isn't coming from above, neither now or later. The very rich are getting very much richer, and politicians of both parties in DC are pretending that this somehow represents the overall experience and trajectory of the country. It's nothing but Blue Skies from now on, Manny.

[progressoid]

41. Oh lighten up Manny. It's going to trickle down to us!