This is not mere rhetoric.
"...The worst element of that is that among the unemployed, against the American history, more than approaching half, have [been] unemployed for over six months. That is historically unprecedented in the United States. That is a phenomenon that is seen often in Europe, rarely seen here. In 2007 the average time to get a new job was five weeks. It's now near six months. And that implies a whole segment of the population, the more elderly or the middle-aged who may never get employed again," Charles Krauthammer said on FOX News this evening
The U-6 unemployment measure is now 15.8%.
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The economic costs associated with long term unemployment are a given at this point. What's missing from this statisic is the severe social costs associated with long term unemployment. The rising rates of homelessness among children which, of course, correlates to higher truencies and drop out rates, malnutrition, emotional distress for children (and mom and dad). Domestic violence is on the rise of course. The list goes on and on. Long term unemployment tears at the social fabric that this nation was made from.
I hear a lot of talk about how we're burdening our children and our children's children with debt. But look at what we're doing to them TODAY. Nevermind High School grad. unemployment, unemployment among college grads is just as outragous and at unacceptable levels by any unit of measurement. We're completely failing our children because we're afraid to finance our crisis over the next 10 years at less than 3%. It seems that by focusing on what might happen in the future, we've lost our focus on what needs to be done today. It's sad. And it's getting worse.
We're now 3 years into our lost decade if you've been keeping track.
Actually, Struppster, we've "financed" our generosity to a Federal Government beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.
That's been ongoing since FDR, and has grown at an even faster rate since LBJ and Carter--with help from Congresses of all stripes and hapless twits like GHWB and his son.
There's nothing left for the population, since the Gummint's employees took it all.
So your saying the majority of the wealth in this country has moved from the population into hands of the government's employees?
Seems to me that our elected officials have financed and continue to finance our generosity to another segment of society as well.
You're an econ guy.
Seems to me that disposable income has been steadily reduced since the mid-1960's through a combination of:
1) increased Fed/State/Local taxation;
2) increased cost of goods, due partly to taxation of the selling entities AND due to regulatory cost-increases.
We could add, recently, the reduction/stagnation of real wage income due to availability of cheap labor AND export of manufacturing for the purposes of evading tax/reg costs in the US.
1. As I said before, the total tax burden of the average American is not dramatically different than it was 40 years ago. You might be able to make the case that taxes/fees outside of the Federal income tax has moved upward but corporate/personal income tax burden has moved downward, not upward (especially if you're rich) since the 60's.
2. This assumes that we've seen a dramatic move upward in CPI over the past few decades as tax and regulatory costs are passed on to consumers and/or corporate profits dwindle. Last I checked both have gone in the opposite direction.
What HAS happened since the 60'
s has been the steady financialization of the American economy via de-regulation and the steady decline of the American industrial complex via "free" trade agreements, de-unionization and the strong dollar policy of the 1990's which allowed developing nations to manipulate their currencies by strategically accumulating vast quantities of U.S. Treasuries to boost exports and at the same time "export" unemployment to the rest of the developed world.
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