So let's get real. We Americans are losing ground, with the help of the very corporations to which we gave birth. We are giving up our superiority to China as well as to other industrialized countries. The US labor force is now smaller than it was before the Great Recession began and most American families are worse off. December's unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent but almost half the improvement was due to 260,000 people dropping out of the labor force. So who does our government think they are kidding?
Average hourly wages in the US grew by three cents in December; weekly wages, by $1.02. And almost all the gains in income, which explained that tiny gain in the average, occurred at the top! The major assets of rich Americans are financial -- the size of which have increased as corporate profits have grown. The major assets of the middle-class asset are their homes, whose values continue to drop.
So the President now says the answer is to help American business! "We can't succeed unless American businesses succeed," he said dogmatically. "And I'm going to do everything I can to promote their ability to grow and prosper."
But the prosperity of America's big businesses has become disconnected from the prosperity of most Americans.
Republicans say the answer is to reduce the size and scope of government. But without a government that's focused on more and better jobs, we're left with global corporations that don't give a damn about how many Americans have jobs or whether or not they are steadily losing their homes and income.
So China is eating our lunch. In a nutshell, the reason is that it has a national economic strategy designed to create more and better jobs, while w e have global corporations designed to make money for shareholders. Fellow Americans, we are being played for fools.
Has America lost its nerve at the very moment in history when it most needs it?
Americans like to think of themselves as bold. It was boldness that gave birth to the country, built it, protected it from external threat and rescued it in times of domestic turbulence.
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