Krugman: Recession ‘gratuitous’ because if Congress created jobs program it ‘would all be over’

[YoungDemCA]

39. In order for there to be a healthy economy again, the rich would have to make bigger sacrifices....

..certainly much bigger than they currently make.

We have a consumption-based economy. That is the reality. Who would spend the most money today? The lower and working classes, because (1) there are far, far more of them than the rich, and (2), in order for the lower and middle strata of American to keep up with the cost of living in the US, they have to spend money today.

The problem in the American economy is a lack of demand, which is tied to the fact that more and more wealth is tied up in fewer and fewer hands. Corporations are sitting on record numbers of cash reserves, because in a recession, their priority is to keep costs down, not to hire people.

Get the demand side of the economy going again, and you will have a stronger middle class, economic growth, upward mobility..the list goes on. But the rich don't want this, because most of them are too narrow-minded in their individual self-interest; they want what's best for them, and them alone. and screw the rest of us.