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Is the US Jobs Crisis Here to Stay?
John Talton of the Seatle Times reports, Why the US is in a jobs crisis:
The
situation is nicely encapsulated by economist Nouriel Roubini's tweet
this morning: "US economy now close to stall speed. From anemic
recovery to tipping point to stall speed and growth recession. Is a
double dip next?"
The economy only created 54,000 jobs last month. It
takes between 125,000 to 150,000 net new jobs a month just to keep up
with the organic numbers of people entering the labor force, much less
make up for the losses of the Great Recession.
Unemployment
"officially" stands at 9.1 percent, the real rate much higher. "To
remind us what a healthy unemployment rate looks like, four years ago,
in May 2007, the unemployment rate stood at 4.4 percent, and 11 years
ago, in May 2000, the unemployment rate was 4.0 percent," according to
economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.
"The U.S. workforce needs the pace of job growth to accelerate
dramatically in order to re-establish full employment within any
reasonable timeframe, and instead, the recovery is on pause."
Put another way, by the blog Zero Hedge, the
U.S. would have to create 250,000 jobs a month for 66 months just to
return to where unemployment stood in December 2007 by the end of
President Obama's second term. But why is job creation broken?
It's an area where we need urgent research and sober debate. I can think of these reasons:
- The stimulus and the Federal Reserve's
QE2 failed. They arguably prevented worse unemployment and deflation,
but it's impossible to prove a negative. The stim was particularly
ill-suited for job creation — heavy on ineffective tax cuts, light on
infrastructure. Too much of the Fed's money was used to save the Wall
Street playerz, then let them make a new killing off it.
- Business models have changed. Many
companies have found ways to do as much or more with fewer workers.
Thus, record corporate profits and cash on hand haven't translated into
much hiring. Offshoring, technology, doubling-down on the existing workforce and continuing industry consolidation all play a role.
- The
negative feedback loop continues to discourage hiring: The housing
collapse (where so many jobs were created in the 2000s); millions
struggling with the consequences of losing their homes or being
underwater on mortgages; 10-year wage gains worse than
during the Great Depression, lowering buying power and hurting
business; many small businesses, a key engine of jobs, unable to get
loans; government fiscal crises hurting investment and education, as
well as causing layoffs in this sector and hurting small private
vendors.
- The jobs-skills disconnect. Millions
of jobs for the housing bubble required relatively few advanced
skills. But manufacturers now complain they can't find the workers who
have the training to handle the leading-edge jobs they have. This is
even more pronounced in advanced technology sectors.
- The dogma about tax cuts for the wealthy leading to job creation doesn't work. Indeed,
job creation during the George W. Bush administration was some of the
worst since the Hoover years, but it was cloaked by the housing bubble.
Meanwhile, the political climate won't allow for more aggressive
job-creating stimulus, such as infrastructure spending.
- The
capital markets have disconnected from their traditional role of
assembling funding for productive, job-creating enterprises. Much of the big profits come from trading or job-killing mergers. LinkedIn and Groupon
are clever and will siphon off billions of dollars in investment. They
will create relatively few jobs. Even seemingly traditional large
corporations spend time making profits trading on Wall Street rather
than using the money to hire. Meanwhile, the finance sector is among the most politically powerful and will protect the status quo.
- The hollowing out of much of the economy is real and it has happened in sectors that once created millions of jobs.
Tens of thousands of factories closed during the 2000s, and not just
in the auto industry. The textile and apparel sectors in the Carolinas
were devastated by NAFTA and China's entry into the WTO. Again, this
was cloaked by the housing bubble.
- The recovery has never been broad-based, and businesses have been faced with ongoing uncertainty. President
Obama did himself no favors here with the complex health revamp,
although it is a huge windfall for the insurance industry. But the
uncertainty also includes the price of oil and the future of energy
costs.
- The sectors once called "high tech" (but almost
everything involves high tech now) are not creating large numbers of
American jobs, as retired Intel Chief Executive Andy Grove has pointed out. As companies "scale up" they are no longer doing much hiring of Americans.
- Some
will point to immigration, and in the 2000s the U.S. saw its largest
wave of immigration in its history, even larger than 1890 to 1920, and
much of it illegal. The academic evidence points to immigrants being a
net plus in terms of economic output vs. their cost in social services.
But it's also true that easy
immigration helped drive down wages. Yet this took place as American
business as a whole adopted Wal-Mart's low-wage, part-time,
minimal-benefit model. "Consumers" got low prices, but unfortunately they also suffered as workers. Who to blame here?For all the political theater, America has a jobs crisis much more than a debt crisis. Until it fixes the former and creates broad-based growth, it can't meaningfully address the latter.
I
totally agree with many points expressed in this article, especially
the last point on America's jobs crisis being far more important to fix
than the debt crisis. Right-wing pundits have been busy spinning the
debt crisis but the reality is unless there is a meaningful and
sustained jobs recovery, the debt crisis will never be addressed. And
don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
How do I know
this? Just look at Greece. Austerity is a disaster, pushing their
economy to the brink. Greece doesn't have a manufacturing base
and relies almost exclusively on tourism and shipping as the pillars for
its economy. Young and smart Greeks are leaving the country not
because they want to, but because there are simply no opportunities in
the private sector. Greek policymakers are doing absolutely nothing to
address serious structural issues in their economy.
That brings me
to my next point. The real crisis behind the jobs crisis in the US and
pretty much the rest of the developed world is the leadership crisis.
Politicians and policymakers are spewing the same old ideas. Liberals
want to increase deficit spending while conservatives want to decrease
taxes and cut spending. Same old, same old. There is nothing new in
these policies based on ideology. Nobody has the courage to take on
interest groups and admit that there is a fundamental problem with the
current trajectory.
What really worries me from a social
perspective is that the disconnect between the financial system and the
real economy is widening income inequality. QE2 hasn't done much for the
real economy yet, but it's been a boon for traders and money managers.
The financial oligarchs couldn't care less about what's going on in the
real economy, and neither do America's corporate titans. All they care
about is their total compensation which continues to rise to record
levels while millions struggle with unemployment.
Unless something
is done to address structural issues in the labor force, including the
ever widening income gap between the haves and have-nots, a whole
generation of workers will suffer from chronic unemployment and along
with it, loss of job skills, loss of dignity, and most worrisome,
chronic mental and physical health problems that will put additional
pressure on public spending.
Now is the time for our political
leaders to step up to the plate and address the jobs crisis. If they
don't act quickly and forcefully with fresh and courageous ideas that
work, then capitalism as we know it is doomed. If this sounds too
"Marxist" for you, then you're ignorant of history and how human beings
always repeat the same mistakes. Somewhere down there, Marx is grinning
in his grave. I leave you with an interesting discussion from ABC's This
Week on the prospects for the class of 2011.
»
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To summarize some of the "solutions" in the article and many comments: we need more central planning since its worked so well for the last half century.
Here's the real crux of the problem: you don't need a significant portion of the population to be employed in a high tech society. And you can stilll have high productivity. So you must create phony jobs in the FIRE economy to give the illusion of wealth. But you use credit/debt to do so. So unless you have a technique for converting the bell shaped IQ curve to a delta function centered on 120 its fairly hard to employ those below the mean of 100 (i.e. 50% of the population). In the meantime, just truck all those on food stamps out to farms to collect their own food and you'll deal with the "unemployment" problem by a conversion back to an agrarian economy. From Leo's picture, those unemployed could use the exercise to lose a little weight. That will take care of their obesity induced medical problems too so medicaid can be drastically cut. But then many health care "workers" will be unemployed. What to do? More central planning, peut-etre?
Some humor to counter your simplistic point:
It reads:''CORPORATE LEADERS GATHER IN A FIELD OUTSIDE DARIEN, CONNECTICUT, WHERE ONE OF THEM CLAIMS TO HAVE SEEN THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE MARKETPLACE.''
Another STIMULOUS for "jobs" and give JPM/GS/WFC/BAC a few trillion dollars more.
My highest ambitions have been met in trucking. Multimillion dollar cargo delivered and cardboard waste straight back to Memphis. What a gravy train that was. As long there is hospitals that will continue always.
Now it is easy to be a Temp. One that is a Crew Leader with 14 people under you and a mission of day to complete and two bosses and customers all around. If I am not screaming at my crew, then our crew is the best damn outfit in the place. They get to go home early when all done.
Unfortunately we get stone cold looks from the Company that hired our Temp company. Because they get to sit around fighting off the sleep induced by lunch, junk food and sugar laden drinks in a attempt to fight off the 2 PM Biological labor-sapping crash.
Nature has been most generous in creating work necessary to restore our dependance out of tornados, floods and other disasters that hit an otherwise decent town or city where there isnt much to do or even houses that can be sold to anyone. Only rented.
One more thought.
Railroads went from Steam to a 2 man crew with Dispatching thousands of miles away.
We need to return to steam days where it takes 10 men to maintain a engine ready to leave prior to it's assigned run and several jobs at every tower, junction and depot along the line.
We need to do what France did. Go to a three day work week with about ... 8 hours or so then go home. Slow it all down. No more overtime etc. If you still have unfinished work at the end of shift, then either let it all sit overnight until the morning or hire shift number two.
There was a time long ago when the United States of America shut down at sunset except for the most vital and necessary industry to keep us safe at night.
"Made In China" has nothing to do with it .. move along
This will only fix itself when the great reset happens for our economy and essentially our way of govt.. Our leaders are who we voted for, it's a self perpetuating system. When people are made ignorant, don't be surprised that they elect the same type of people into office, or into leadership positions.
PMs stocks and oil heading lower?
http://deadcatbouncing.blogspot.com
If the world economy can produce all that people want using little labor, what the hell are all of the other people supposed to do?
If they don't have an income they can't buy stuff.
If the manufacturers and the service sector doesn't need them, what the fuck are they supposed to do?
At some point, people have enough "stuff".
How do the have nots get some money to buy the stuff that the haves have?
Who has the money?
We've got to get the money from those with the money, to those who don't have any.
It used to be that money printing worked for this purpose. But those with the money are holding on to the money that the fed gives them.
I say we tax those bastards. If they don't want to pay taxes, they better invest in jobs. We will still allow that tax deduction.
Raise the tax rates. And business will use the loopholes to get out of paying taxes. One of the biggest loopholes is the business deduction.
gh
Thanks for the easy math problem Tyler.
The problem is not Obama.
The problem is that the U.S. is not competitive. And being competitive in todays world means working for less pay.
As long as we keep importing stuff because it is cheaper, and paying for it with debt, we are on the road to ruin.
As long as our country runs a trade imbalance we will have to borrow to spend, whether public or private.
So, we either need to get a lot poorer, or we need to limit the stuff that we import, or both.
That is the hard truth. And it is not something that any politician can fix. It is a sad fact of economics. All the rest is just noise.
gh
tariff is a tool forgotten in the globalization tool shed
The job crisis and debt crisis are two sides of the same coin. We don't have free market capitalism we have centrally planned economies. What we've been living under bears more of a resemblance to communism than capitalism so call it what it is. The keynesians aren't going to let go of power easily, they'll drive the world to collapse first. Central planning won't save you, but the founding fathers might. Throw off the yoke of gov't oppression and see what happens.
Hello......Obama's Chief of Staff RAHM EMANUEL was Bill Clinton's point man ramrodding NAFTA AND a retroactive tax increase thru a Democratic Congress in 1993......and he bragged about it! No Jobs........blame Democrats!
haha you think rahm was clinton's guy? more like the other way around - the ones in power do not seek votes they shepherd them
structural v. cyclical
all those unemployed should move to China.. I hear their solar sector is booming and can't find enough people to make solars... booming i say.. booming
Isn't the sound a bomb makes "boom"? So, you're saying their solar sector is exploding or blowing up much like their housing sector? I agree.
I totally agree with many points expressed in this article, especially the last point on America's jobs crisis being far more important to fix than the debt crisis. Right-wing pundits have been busy spinning the debt crisis but the reality is unless there is a meaningful and sustained jobs recovery, the debt crisis will never be addressed. And don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
========
because we don't want anyone questioning our authority and propaganda
OMG, how many times do we have to hear that the solution to our problems is more government?
2 words Leo. Wage Arbitrage.
Its that simple. Next.
Yes, the law of Physics says that water will seek it's own level. Think about it? What do you think the level should be? What should be our standard of living be for what we produce? What is it we can produce with our resources that simply cannot be done cheaper anywhere else? When you figure that out, we may have a chance.
No one has picked up on the fact that continuing claims are falling rapidl and more than offsetting the income gains from new jobs. 2 million fewer recipients since the beginning of the year.
Simply put, a few billionaires now own the world. I'm guessing an American or two, a Russian, a Chinese or two, a few Arabs.
Ignore what you see on the news, ZH gets closer to the truth, but there is still so much deception that the truth is just about impossible to determine.
The jobs are gone, and when you think how much more "adjusting" still needs to be done to make China and India's middle class equal to ours, you have to come to the conclusion that it has only started.
Career opportunities in the Arctic circle. Must be hardworking, self sufficient and able to work in a cold environment. Tools and transportation required.
roughly 50,000 factories in the usa closed and shipped to china et al for export of products back here might have negative implications for jobs in the usa. but that's just me thinking out loud.
Both Larry Summers and Joesph Stiglitz said quietly and privately, shortly after Obama's inaugration, that 10% unemployment in the USA was here for a long, long time. No end in sight. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone but the deaf, dumb and blind MSM.
I would like to make an arguement why High Tech and efficiency together has contributed in a vast way in destroying jobs and transfered wealth away from the middle class to the few financially rich that have taken advantage of this anomoly.
Efficiency is a misunderstood term. Take for example 1: A high efficiency electric motor uses less copper to make up the winding so it uses less current; but it runs hotter and is more vulnerable to surges and brownouts. This causes more electric motor burnouts. If you look in the boneyard of any factory that has been around for 50 years or more you will find many burned out high efficiency motors but the old low efficiency motors are still around and working. So while high efficiency motors are energy saving, they the downside is the cost of constant replacements and lost production on a machine waiting for a replacement. Weighing the difference and one might find that high efficiency motors may infact be a money losing proposition. But the high paid company comptroller does not have the knowledge to read past the literature making the case that the high efficiency motor saves on the electric bill.
2. Technology has automated many tasks that used to be done by humans. The development of computer software has also eliminated many jobs. The global corporations have benefited the most by this. They have made use of this by increasing their efficiency. This type of efficiency allows for more profit at the cost of jobs. Is this moral? This about it for a minute. One of the functions of our government is to provide an environment for job creation. With this in mind it seems government is not doing its job. These global multinational corporations are too big to participate fairly. They create high tech durable goods like automobiles, washing machines, etc. that are now controlled by computers. These computers and parts have patents on them to keep others from making the parts; thus eliminating competition. With this scheme markets are cornered and we have monopolys galore. In the case with automobiles we have State inspection centers making sure the cars are in compliance with industry standards; they are enforcing industry/government regulations written in favor of the corporations. There is no allowance for competition. By breaking up these multinational global corporations into regional corporations redundancy would be established that would create many jobs in this country. Also being so much smaller these companies would be less likely to go to China and would seek local support from other companies for manufacturing components for their products.
We are in a forced economy. Job loss does not hurt the elite. We are going through an economic contraction. The global corporations will shed their extra baggage in this country to balance to our sitution. What we need to do is cut these corporations down to size if they want to operate in this country. Just breaking up these large corporations alone would create much needed good paying jobs in this country and bring back manufacturing.
High Tech has done much damage to the middle class. High Tech has a place but not as a factor for full employment. Full employment creates stability. High Tech has created instability because it has been used to eliminate jobs and consolidate wealth into the hands of a few.
Before defending high tech too much; think about how it has been misunderstood and misused to eliminate jobs that should not have been eliminated. High Tech is behind the consolidation of wealth into the hands of a few.
Add that high-tech has also cut the balls off of the ones who have traditionally been the most politically active-the 20 somethings. More addictive than heroin, the internet/media dependence is now much more important to them than the future of our country.
Maybe watching their parents end up in the gutter will wake them up.
Crisis? Did you say crisis? For whom does The CRISIS Bell Toll? The tax-gatherer? TheInterest-gatherer? H.m.m.m.m. I wish I wasn't blackballed by Google's adsense or I would write bullshit columns like this one myself. This one is top-notch CNBC quality.
We all know what the problem is. Government [corporations and bankers] enslaving hardworking people and pillaging established commerce.
End the central planning idiocy and end the problem.
Until you're willing to accept this, go whine about the problem to someone who'll listen to inane ramblings of thieves, politicians, economagicians and their livestock.
Sorry, Leo... the problem is debt. Most of the "advanced" nations have been creating artificial prosperity for decades by stealing growth from the future through unhealthy levels/types of debt.
At this point, that is the only type of "growth" anybody knows how to create anymore... we've been doing it for so long now. At first it was small, sustainable, and paid down by the following boom... but since the seventies the boost from the debt hasn't quite paid for itself. And here we are.
Greece didn't "prove" that austerity doesn't work; it simply showed that sometimes the only answer is default.
Sometimes, if you've boxed yourself in real deep by a lifetime of bad choices, the only way out is a generation-long slog through the land of This Sucks Ass... and no clever plan from the clever boys is gonna change a single wretched step of it.
End game of the sunk cost fallacy.
Collapse.
Not all solutions are easy to implement or practical. Tax hikes will only cause political party changes in Washington, the tax hike would be temporary at best until the next election. The top 1% owns this country and the media, they have most Republicans brainwashed that corporate taxes are bad, which is why GE deserves to pay no taxes while they offshore thousands of jobs.
My solution is simple. Get the fuck out of MENA immediately. That'll save nearly a trillion a year off of our annual deficit. Oil prices would collapse to $35 a barrel where *gasp* the average family could afford to buy gas, and could afford to go shopping and eat out at restaurants. Corporations could actually afford to hire American workers instead of offshoring the heck out of everything. Our currency would stop its nosedive by getting our debt-to-GDP ratios back in line with our so-called "AAA" rating. And heck, who knows, we might actually be able to solve problems over here instead of half-way around the world.
Then after we end all these silly wars, we stop building all these weapon systems that serve no real purpose (F-35 has now costed nearly a trillion dollars). Trillions more on aircraft carriers and munitions that have yet to see the light of day. Quick, has the F-22 actually seen combat?
It's sad to see our political cronies discuss cutting Grandma's social security by 20% instead of getting us out of three simultaneous wars.
I guarantee you our GDP would skyrocket back to 5% a quarter the minute Obama announces we're withdrawing troops from Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya.
In the entire history of mankind there has been only four economies;
1) Hunter Gatherer economy
2) Agriculture economy
3) Manufactoring economy
4) Service econonmy
- we're done.
Yes.
After we have built the temples and the societal and cultural houses of cards - the collapse comes from barbarians or agricultural monoculture.
The extant individuals cannot adjust to nor defend from either these or the internal decay - and the remnants flee into the wilderness to become absorbed and return to #1 and/or #2.
As time passes the knowledge left behind dwindles in permanence. Obelisks of Egypt and Sumerian clay tablets still exist, but the parchments of Alexandria burned and our digital artifacts will be lost to the ether.
It always has been and will continue to be a cultural cycle. Some cases, 50 years, some cases a few hundred years. They all end badly. This cannot be stopped any more than the sun rising in the morning.
<<Young and smart Greeks are leaving the country...>>
...as are Irish, North Africans, ME's, Indians, Paki's, etc....
So where will they all go?
The best shovel ready jobs are in Australia. The best IT jobs are in India. The hardware jobs are in China and Taiwan and Germany. Finance jobs are in Hong Kong and Singapore. Fast food jobs are in USA.
Problem = Obama
Is the US Jobs Crisis Here to Stay?
Leo,
Couldn't of you just asked, is the sky blue?
Hire overseas -minus- some jobs here and food stamps + 99weeks = big annual bonus!
1. Leo don't over analyze the problem. Too many people have voted for socialism and now we might very well have a marxist in the white house creating the biggest debtor nation in the world's history.
2. Stop buying from China and start buying American made products. Problem solved.
But but but that would require the phony American exceptionalism crowd to ::gasp:: support American workers!
Note: The idea of American exceptionalism is not phony - just most of the people giving it lip service.
Every time you buy a forign car and blame the president for unemployment, you are a liar and a fraud.
Every time you buy a foreign tool and blame the president for unemployment, you are a liar and a fraud.
Every time you buy a foreign piece of clothing and blame the president for unemployment, you are a liar and a fraud.
Every time you buy a foreign peeice of furniture and blame the president for unemployment, you are a liar and a fraud.
Every time you buy a foreign computer program and blame the president for unemployment, you are a liar and a fraud.
Every time you send a factory to China, look the other way on the southern border, or lobby for more H1Bs, you are not just a liar and a fraud but a traitor too.
"The dogma about tax cuts for the wealthy leading to job creation doesn't work. Indeed, job creation during the George W. Bush administration was some of the worst since the Hoover years"
This is obviously the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
"The stimulus and the Federal Reserve's QE2 failed... Too much of the Fed's money was used to save the Wall Street playerz"
In other words, it was a success?
Or job creation came from something else. At best, you should try to argue that tax cuts for the wealthy have limited efficiency.
LOL, good one, a success for Wall Street for sure.
QE and the FED in general (Keynesian and central bank believers) suffer from the post ego helicopter fallacy whereby belief in central banking and intervention is built by dumping other people's money on a problem you created then placing the blame on those you stole the money from.
Its pretty clear that politicians in the whole of the developed world were too busy with their head buried in the tax payers cash pile.
They could not see that letting in India/China/Others to the WTO would double the competition for jobs, yet currencies are manipulated lower, and workers rights are few. Finally, with the internet, knowledge jobs could be shipped off shore also.
Pandering to the boomer gerations who had homes with low mortages due to inflation, pension provisions, the politicians ensured they could go shopping at low cost and ignored the infrastructure the countries needed. With each handout, or offshoring deal the corruption had grown and grown.
What is shocking, is how this situation is prevalent through the whole of the western world. It is everywhere.
The ways forward in my view is:
1. Clear out whole sale the people in charge, not just politicans or bankers, but all institutional leaders. The don't get it, they don't know what to do about it, they can't stay.
2. Swich to resource / consumption taxes / polution taxes. All savings and income / corporation tax to be set to zero rate.
3. Implement information democracy policies. FOI is not enough. How can the small trader compete for good deals with HFT run by the big banks. Use the law to regulate a real level playing field.
4. Finally, law breakers in financial crimes go to jail. THey also have all their weath confescated - they need to understand what they have done to others. And we should learn from the Jews who pursued the Nazis for war crimes. There was no giving up, however old the suspect, where ever these people were until they were caught and tried. Even as old men near death. No forgetting, and no forgiveness
I like it.
One of the kids is looking for a job, one has prospects on non-career jobs, and two are going to stay in school (go to graduate school).
Perfect.
And the advice from the experts? "Go out there and get a job."
Wow.
Big Picture: Too many people, not enough production.
Agriculture has been mechanized, so post WWII higher education became the steel mill and manufacturing replacement. The U.S. rapidly parsitized any production and manufacturing and off-shored it to increase profit and stock prices for baby boomers to buy for "retirement".
Besides higher education, healthcare became the other industry to replace real production. Big Pharma, disposable medical devices and techniques costing billions, insurance premiums, every cost going up 15%-20% per year. Decades of assets, capital and land and savings, slowly bled out to buy disposable overpriced medicine and degrees to nowhere.
Is it any wonder that the only thing left by 2000 was to create a housing bubble that was then leveraged by Wall Street 40 to 1 with CDS's and MBS's, then bailed out on the backs of the taxpayer, and now we hear the "austerity" word as baby boomers face the theft of their 30+ years of contributions and will have to care for their children who can't find a job or pay off their loans?
We are at the end run of Industrial to Information to Service economy - lots of "Service" there but based on musical chairs of transfer payments - your college graduates will be working Chili's and the Steakhouse chain until they are too old for the bling and corporate smile and hustle game (29).
Then what? Sell overpriced insurance? Work as an aide to a personal injury attorney? Push paper somewhere in higher affirmation (er...education)? Find a state or federal job enforcing regulations? (good luck if you are male and white).
I don't see a political solution to a societal and cultural problem.
It has been too easy for the crony capitalists to sell out to the third world and slave empire of Asia (China).
It has been too easy for the elite socialists to buy votes and feed the benevolent aristocracy of suburbia their self-esteem tablets of granting welfare and food stamps to anyone willing to spit out a baby out of wedlock or walk across the border.
Our societal and cultural house of cards is built upon somehow providing for everyone without producing much of anything beyond self affirmation, bombs, and hamburgers.
Why are people still debating on whether the us job crisis is here to stay? It is very obvious at this junction that US economy is slowing and will continue to slow. All who think this is not happening are suffering from denial. It still amazes me how many Americans are denying the fact that the US economy has and will be declining for quite some time to come. This needs to get to the MSM.