The Economy Is Broken And It Will Be Tough To Fix

Fall seems to have arrived all at once last week. The change of the seasons, marked by the colors of the leaves on the trees in Fairmount Park, exploded upon us finally, and all at once seemingly. I suppose that the unusually warm weather in October is responsible for this. In any event it was a joy to walk and take photographs around Thanksgiving. The rains today will no doubt knock off the majority of the colorful leaves that were so pretty just last week.

If the economy is so good then why are Americans pessimistic about it when they are asked? Paul Krugman, writing in today's New York Times, thinks that the good times enjoyed by the wealthy are simply not trickling down to the masses. Workers' salaries are not keeping up with inflation. This, combined with the worsening health care situation, is why we are not feeling good about the economy. Krugman thinks this will be tough to fix no matter who is elected the next president:

The next president won’t be able to deliver another era of good times unless
he or she manages to tackle the longer-term trends that underlie today’s
economic disappointment: a collapsing health care system and inexorably rising
inequality.

Of course, the Iraq debacle is also part of the problem. We spend enough on that war to fix health care, I believe. By the way, the recent reports that "The Surge" is working should not make us feel good about an illegal war that should never have been started in the first place. It ought to end now by the start of a full withdrawal of American troops. It's about oil, and we should address the oil problem responsibly and not by invading other countries.

Jim

Inequality In The US: A Modern Gilded Age

Now that The Times is totally free again read economist Paul Krugman's blog. It's a "must read." He starts out with a bang:

I was born in 1953. Like the rest of my generation, I took the America I
grew up in for granted – in fact, like many in my generation I railed against
the very real injustices of our society, marched against the bombing of
Cambodia, went door to door for liberal candidates. It’s only in retrospect that
the political and economic environment of my youth stands revealed as a paradise
lost, an exceptional episode in our nation’s history.”

Krugman goes on to argue that the gap between the very rich and the rest of us has exploded to proportions not seen since the excesses of the Gilded Age. This he attributes to the rise of conservatism going back to the 1970s. We're ripe for a huge political change, Krugman argues. Perhaps, but who will be the agent of this change? We'll have to stay tuned!

Jim