A jobless recovery in my opinion is a certainty.

Now I know everyone loves the depression model for examining this crisis but things are quite different and possibly worse.

WW2 not only forced huge debt but fully employed the work force even though the wages were low and the job dangerous. The war even created a new work force by hiring woman. Before the war the economy was improving but ever so slowly, there were government job programs but not enough to move the numbers enough, something the Republicans like to point out. The war changed that.

Yet now we are in two wars but they don’t seem to have had any impact on the economy, no surge in industry or employment in fact, all we have is the debt. About one trillion. I don’t know how that compares to WW2 but it seems significant.

In the thirties banks failed and credit dried up and industries dried up, local industries; American Industry, auto plants, garments, steel, aluminum, oil, tool makers, manufacturing, family farms, so when the war came around and material was needed, the industries geared up and money started to flow.

At the end the government was deeply in debt but the industries adjusted from war commerce back to domestic commerce. When soldiers came home the women went home, houses were built, soldiers went to work or to college on the Government dime. Factories started up making everything from vacuum cleaners to television and radio sets, we were building infrastructure and making goods for Europe to rebuild. And the rest of the world wanted to to sell to us and money came into the Treasury from tariffs.

Now there is little in the way of tariffs and entire industries and jobs went overseas.

We can stimulate the economy but I am not sure what those investments would look like.
We have surrendered whole industries and the jobs with them. Consider the new industries of flat screens televisions, cell phones and computers, they are all made overseas. Congress even refused to protect the little industry we have left from foreign competition. So are we going to build new bridges with Chinese steel using machines made in Japan and South Korea and fueled with Saudi oil?

Can we see the problem here? Without a strong manufacturing base we will forever have underemployment.

The consequence of sending real jobs overseas means we forget how to make things. We only buy. Skilled labor jobs will never come back. Currently there is a shortage of skilled labor largely because the new generation is not interested in skills that built this country and feel those jobs are gone forever. An entire generation is going untrained.

Every person in America is going to need four years of college. This comes from our President.
Does anyone realize how crazy this statement is, sorry not crazy, but completely unrealistic especially considering our underfunded schools. Are we going to be a nation of bankers?

We have been trained to be a nation of consumers and have performed well and spent and spent with unsecured credit cards, right up and over our ears. Told we are entering a new service industry unaware that meant working at cheap burger joints.

Why is China lending us money? Because their jobs depend on it. And without our consumer dollars they can’t finance their own growth.

Krugman may be right we need a massive amount of stimulus but I think we have painted ourselves into a corner with this New World Order and Global Economy. If the world needs our economy we may need a Marshall Plan from them.

Now I know everyone loves the depression model for examining this crisis but things are quite different and possibly worse. In the thirties banks failed and credit dried up and industries dried up. But there were industries, auto plants, garments, steel, aluminum, oil, tool makers, family farms, so when the war came around, the industries geared up and money started to flow. When soldiers came home they were put to work building infrastructure and making goods for Europe to rebuild.

Now there is no industry no, that’s not right, little industry. The jobs lost may never come back. Currently there is a shortage of skilled labor largely because the new generation is not trained.

We have created an economy that only needs paper pushers.