Times Are Great

I was astonished to see another article this a.m. repeating the mantra that economic disaster is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Can anyone actually be repeating this drivel who has seen the prices of everything rise, while incomes are going down, not just for the working poor? The prices of those refinanced houses has also gone down. We're all losing purchasing power.

The real story is out there, and Sen. Bernie Sanders has it.

For years, self-proclaimed socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been railing about the shrinking middle class and the effect of rising costs on working people.

But he didn't know the extent of the problem until he appealed to his constituents, asking them recently to describe how America's beleaguered economy was affecting them. He expected a few dozen replies.

The request unleashed a torrent of e-mail messages and letters describing -- in soul-baring personal detail -- the economic tightrope being walked by people in Vermont and beyond who are struggling to stay warm and keep food on the table. More than 869 replies came in, prompting Sanders to publish some excerpts and read others on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

"The number just blew me away," he said Tuesday. "The power and poignancy and the pain expressed in these letters was just heartbreaking. These weren't interviews done at the homeless shelter. These were middle-class people, working people or seniors. These weren't people on the margin. By and large, most of the people were working people and most owned their own homes.

"It seems to me that the decline of the middle class has been taking place for years, but the rising price of gas has taken people over the economic cliff. Now, many people are desperate, and the level of desperation has really surprised me," said Sanders, I-Vt.
(snip)
A 31-year-old woman with two children wrote that her husband was contemplating quitting his job because the pay now barely covers the gas it takes his pickup truck to get there. "Meanwhile, my mortgage is behind, we are at risk for foreclosure and I can't keep up with my car payments," she wrote. "My parents, both in their 60s, are back to work so that they can make ends meet, and struggle to come up with enough gas money so they can get to doctor's appointments."

These are not people who are driving up in cadillacs to cash their welfare check, an image the GoPervs used to make the public resent those who were unable to support themselves. The people working those two or three jobs that the cretin in chief calls "real Americans" can't pay for their basic needs.

Meanwhile we have a few idiots at WaPo saying it's a matter of self-fulfilling prophecies, those mythical stories that make us think we don't get enough to eat because we can't afford three meals a day. No, we have jobs so we should be dancing to stay warm.

According to most broad measures of how the economy is doing, it's not all that grim.

Soft? You betcha. In recession? Quite possibly. And a crisis in the financial markets has rattled nerves for months now. But so far, the economy is holding up better than it did during the last two recessions in 1990 and 2001. Employers haven't shed as many jobs, the unemployment rate is still relatively low, and gross domestic product has kept rising.
(snip)
Two-thirds of the economy is consumer spending. So if people's negative outlook leads them to cut their spending, a steeper downturn could happen.

See, all you big spenders? If you just keep spending you will keep us all afloat.

There really are those business writers still trying to convince you that you need to mortgage that house and buy more. If you will just listen to those great economic indicators about productivity and keep eating the mud cookies, everything will be fine.

I heard that same line in the savings and loan crash. Value isn't something some glib words will create, for all that the business writer is paid to tell you it is. When you can't afford to heat or cool your home, that's the 'real' economy. It isn't make believe. And the 'socialist' policies of allowing working people the amount they earn, a living wage, is what is needed to solve the problems our country is facing.

The gold standard has been replaced by consumer confidence, making you, the wage earner, the only value there is. And if you aren't getting what you are earning, that is devaluation.