Good gosh what a mish mash of ideas; so is the economy growing or not? This statement says production is still in a hole and yet the whole idea behind the piece is that Americans are wrong and that the economy is growing. Since the announcement that the recession is over came less than a month ago, is the public really so stupid?
Steve, the economy has been growing, and we've been out of the recession for months now. The problem of course is that unemployment is high. There are a lot of reasons for that, and one of them is that labor intensive industry has gone to cheap labor markets overseas. Another one is that during the recent recession, business found was of operating that reduced their head count, so they don't have to hire more people now (I just heard that one on either NPR or the Newshour, I forget which, a few days ago). Slow growth is still growth even if it doesn't feel like it if you or people you know are unemployed.
As for TARP; I think the frustration with TARP money going to banks is that they bailed out the reckless bankers and handed them the keys again. This insanity of letting banks and bankers dictate our policy is frustrating to no end. So you hand the TARP money to halt the crash of GS and Blankfein says ....."thank you and now I can return to doing god's work". Well doing god's work to Blamkfein is getting multi million dollar yearly bonuses.
That is one of the frustrations. That is certainly the frustration of you and me. But if Obama or a Democratic politician says anything like that, he will get castigated for fomenting class warfare or for being "anti-business" or some such thing. But what are the Republicans and the critics saying? They are carping about how much it cost and how large the deficit is as a consequence of all this giving away of money, not that the same people were left in charge. Do we hear McConnell or any Republican leader--or for that matter, any of those "angry rebels" the Tea Party people--calling for the head of Blankfein? Or any other big bank leader? No, they are screaming about how much money Obama is spending, and how big the deficit is, and claim that that is a direct result of Obama's spending. Well, what it really is is more of a direct result of the deepest recession we've had since the 1930s, and the tax cuts and the two wars that Bush sponsored that were never paid for.
But, nevermind little details like that. |
