Is the Recession Over?

I have thought rebuilding consumer confidence -- and investor/business confidence -- is the only way to improve the economy. But short-term money-infusion gimmicks and even throwing out money by itself without creating a clear picture for the public of where it is going -- big picture, please -- is not going to do it, because there is little faith that the jobs created that way will last. It has to be (1) fundamental changes such as universal health insurance and credit card reform that show a commitment to reversing "The Great Risk Shift," and (2) creating jobs that, if not forever, may last for 10-20 years until the private economy, which has been devastated over the past nine years, can recover.

Private construction, it would seem, is essentially dead for a generation. It is said that we have badly neglected the infrastructure for at least 30 years, and that's where we can create the jobs that will be, and crucially will also be seen as, real jobs. That's assuming there is an aggregation of huge projects that can create millions of jobs that will remain on a genuine wish list after the current stimulus really kicks in over the next year or whatever. Most obvious is public transportation. Pitch more public transportation-building as a way to create good jobs -- along with noting we are falling behind every other OECD country, so it is something we need that will pay off in the future -- and direct job-creation spending like that might build more public support, enough to overcome the Republican naysayers.

That's a nice succinct and telling capsule for how inequality is a fundamental cause of things that have been happening. Too much money in the hands of the already-wealthy along with too little for everyone else seems to me a far better explanation than such nebulous concepts as too much Asian money sloshing around. When I see figurative terms like "sloshing" or "meltdown," it's a signal to me that the writer doesn't really understand the intricacies of what is being described.