Heleen Mees van de NRC 11

Wat deze huppelende sociaaldemocrate tevens verzwijgt is dat het reëel inkomen van de gemiddelde werknemer in de VS sinds 1978 niet gestegen is. Wat wel gestegen is zijn de grootscheepse leningen door zowel de staat als door haar burgers, met als gevolg dat het imperium en zijn inwoners nu failliet zijn. De Amerikaanse hoogleraar, de evolutionair bioloog Jared Diamond, die het verval van dichtbij meemaakt, beschrijft in zijn boek 'Collapse' nauwgezet hoe 'corruption, mismanagement, and political inertia by an elite, which is beyond the reach of the law, almost always result in widespread cynicism, disengagement, apathy, and finally rage. Those who suffer the consequences of this mismanagement lose any loyalty to the nation and increasingly nurse fantasies of violent revenge. The concept of the common good, mocked by the behaviour of the privileged classes, disappears. Nothing matters. It is only about ME.'

Zolang de schijn hooggehouden kan worden, lijkt het alsof er sprake is van normaliteit. Zolang onvolwassen mensen hun directe begeertes kunnen bevredigen, zolang een 40-jarige juffrouw als een kind kan blijven rondhuppelen in haar zondagse jurk, lijkt er niets aan de hand te zijn. De werkelijkheid ontgaat dit slag mensen. Deze werkelijkheid: 'when progressivity was lost in the 80s, the income of the poor began falling, while that of the rich continued growing... The income disparity between rich and poor has increased dramatically since 1978.'

En deze werkelijkheid bijvoorbeeld:

Unemployment Rate Is Highest in 26 Years
Friday 02 October 2009
by: Dean Baker | The Center for Economic and Policy Research

The benchmark revisions will show job loss was 824,000 larger than originally reported.

The loss of 263,000 payroll jobs, coupled with a 0.1 hour decline in the average workweek, pushed the index of aggregate hours to 98.5, slightly below the 98.6 level in December of 1998. Hours worked have now declined by 8.6 percent from the pre-recession peak. In the 1981-82 recession the decline from peak to trough was 5.8 percent. The loss of jobs also pushed the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent. The unemployment rate for men hit 10.3 percent, surpassing the 10.1 percent peak in the 1981-82 recession.

The accelerated pace of job loss was driven primarily by the government, retail, and educational services sectors. The government sector lost 53,000 jobs in September, compared with a loss of 19,000 jobs in August. Most of the job loss was again at the state and local level, which together accounted for 47,000 of the lost jobs. The private educational services sector, which had been adding jobs through the recession, lost 16,900 jobs in September. These job losses, like the state and local cutbacks, are largely the result of budget shortfalls since much of the funding for these services comes from the public sector. Retail trade lost 38,500 jobs in September after losing just 8,800 in August. The biggest difference here was in the auto sector – 7,100 jobs lost, after having added 3,500 in August to meet demand from the Cash for Clunkers program.

The construction sector continued its rapid pace of job loss, shedding 64,000 jobs in September, mostly in non-residential construction. Manufacturing lost another 51,000 jobs. The loss of jobs, coupled with shorter workweeks, has led to a fall in the index of aggregate hours worked in manufacturing of 22.0 percent from its pre-recession peak in July of 2006. Hours worked in this sector have dropped 39.1 percent since December of 1997.

Wage growth continues to weaken with wages rising at just a 1.7 percent nominal rate over the last quarter, almost certainly less than the rate of inflation.

This month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported its preliminary benchmark revisions to the establishment survey data. This revision, based on unemployment insurance records, shows that employment in March of 2009 was 824,000 lower than originally reported, with private sector employment 855,000 lower. This extraordinarily large downward revision is not surprising because the imputation for new firms not included in the survey was consistently larger than the imputation from the prior year when the economy was still growing. Including this revision, the economy has lost over eight million jobs in the downturn.'
Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/100309A