If Paul Krugman is too wordy for you, David Horsey put it into cartoon form: there is a radical disconnect between what “the numbers” say about the economy and what the experience of you and almost everyone you know says about the economy.
Although consumer confidence rose slightly in August, the fact remains that almost as many people think jobs are hard to get as think jobs are plentiful. Gas prices are at record highs and poised to soar higher, yet incomes remain unchanged. This might signal a potential problem even if you don’t think the national debt, deficit spending, the potential housing bubble, consumer debt levels, and the trade imbalance with China are problems.
If, somehow, you can ignore all this, you cannot ignore the fact that poverty has risen again for the 4th straight year. In fact, 1.1 million people are living in poverty this year who weren’t last year. If you’d prefer to think of it this way, 1 out of every 8 Americans live in poverty. It is no longer a third world issue. It is here and now.
A side effect of this poverty level is that more Americans are doing without health insurance. In fact, there are 8 million more uninsured people than there are poor people. Since many poor people are covered by Medicaid, it is clear that we are talking about an even larger pool of people who are either poor or uninsured. This is a problem not only because of lost productivity as people put off small problems or preventative medicine. It is not just a problem because high medical debt often leads to bankruptcy. It also means that doctors and hospitals lose about $45 thousand million in bad debts. Most industries can’t afford to write off billions of dollars; medicine can’t either.
The ostrich economists, however, think that everything is fine. The official unemployment number is low, inflation is under control as long as we don’t pay attention to petrol, and corporate profits are great. The economy really is great if you are close enough to the top.
Everything will be wonderful as long as they can keep the serfs under control. And the serfs are quite nicely controlled by high debt levels, anxiety over health care, fuel costs that limit their movements, and jobs that take up a great deal of their time while barely covering expenses.
In closing: Ten Items Inspired by Science Fiction includes the flip-type cell phone. What a shame they aren’t as cool as in Star Trek. Sorry, you shouldn’t need 2 hands to answer your phone. Also, Could you pass 8th grade math? I got 9 out of 10 because I misread a question. I used only my brain and a small bit of scribbling paper. Of particular note is that the explanation to one answer makes it clear that I should have used a calculator! A calculator? On a math test?