Friday, June 08, 2012
Where Goes the Economy?
Whether you use quantiles or broad class deliniations such as lower, mid- and upper-middle class, the key issue must be jobs at all levels that yield the money needed to live and advance. Jobs started being difficult to find in many areas of the nation some years ago, as least a decade, as the main drivers of the economy began to slow down, such as housing, autos, and general construction, to name some big ones. This undercuts the lower classes first, and the middle classes second. Upper classes, especially at the elite levels, have simply driven their Caddys, Rolls, or Jaguars another year, postponed buying a bigger home, and perhaps not replaced a departing servant or two, or thought it best not to travel as much.
Entrepreneurs have reined in their expectations throughout the Obama years, I believe, because of the twin question marks of healthcare cost uncertainties and regulation impacts whose full costs on all manner of enterprises have yet to be well-understood. Manufacturers, likewise see uncertainty in the market and have reduced their output and their staffing. Consumers have done the same, and reined in their outlays because of a lack of confidence in the market and job insecurity. The looming yearly Trillion dollar debits and Multi-Trillion dollar national debt have had their impact on confidence across the board as well, all of which seriously affects the job picture.
Thus, it isn’t surprising that over the past decade upward mobility has suffered and has left many trapped in their class through lack of money. Opportunities for advancement have not been as available to them, and even the job they held has been at risk, witness the approximate 14 million unemployed, including those who have given up looking, as well as the 8.2% officially recorded.
To highten the difficulties, many were encouraged to commit to mortgages that ended up being a foreclosure millstone around their necks, because of bankers being goaded by the government into handing out money to millions of dubious customers, and then selling the bundled mortgage papers to the world with disastrous results in the depression and job losses that followed.
Jobs==>money==>education==>better jobs==>more money==>better lifestyle==>upward mobility…..but this chain has been broken, seemingly at every transition.
Entrepreneurs have reined in their expectations throughout the Obama years, I believe, because of the twin question marks of healthcare cost uncertainties and regulation impacts whose full costs on all manner of enterprises have yet to be well-understood. Manufacturers, likewise see uncertainty in the market and have reduced their output and their staffing. Consumers have done the same, and reined in their outlays because of a lack of confidence in the market and job insecurity. The looming yearly Trillion dollar debits and Multi-Trillion dollar national debt have had their impact on confidence across the board as well, all of which seriously affects the job picture.
Thus, it isn’t surprising that over the past decade upward mobility has suffered and has left many trapped in their class through lack of money. Opportunities for advancement have not been as available to them, and even the job they held has been at risk, witness the approximate 14 million unemployed, including those who have given up looking, as well as the 8.2% officially recorded.
To highten the difficulties, many were encouraged to commit to mortgages that ended up being a foreclosure millstone around their necks, because of bankers being goaded by the government into handing out money to millions of dubious customers, and then selling the bundled mortgage papers to the world with disastrous results in the depression and job losses that followed.
Jobs==>money==>education==>better jobs==>more money==>better lifestyle==>upward mobility…..but this chain has been broken, seemingly at every transition.
Labels: Economy
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