We are in a massive unemployment crisis in this country that a rising DOW above 11,000 has no connection to and if anything masks the true state of the American economy.
Obama's 780 billion plus stimulus package has all but been depleted. Though some jobs were created and some saved (mostly on the state and local level) the programs did not even keep up with the increase of new workers entering the job market.
There is a desperate need for a 1930's type stimulus package of programs i.e. W.P.A. (works projects administration infrastructure construction and renovation projects), C.C.C. (civilian conservation corps) development projects for parks and national forests but also a massive influx of public, private and foundation aided efforts to form worker cooperatives (employee managed and controlled) as well as local area, (former) employee owned and operated factories (using existing vacant factory complexes that were closed by their previous owners who moved their labor operations to 3rd world countries).
Our "official" unemployment level is close to 10% but unofficially is closer to 20% when including those no longer looking for work, people working part time but want (and need) full time jobs as well as those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits. So the reality of joblessness (close to 30 million) doesn't match the "official" figures.
In the immediate dire situation, short term deficit spending will be needed to achieve large scale job creation. But over the long haul, considering our existing trillion dollar deficits where can we find the resources to fund and sustain these type programs long term (as is likely)? The answer ; the bloated defense budget of unnecessary military hardware (planes, aircraft carriers, atomic submarines, tanks and other military hardware that are still being built for an enemy (the USSR) that ceased to exist over 20 years ago.
Couple this unnecessary spending with our undeclared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (not to mention our clandestine war in Pakistan) funded through Congressionally approved supplements not included in the yearly approved Defense Department budget) there exists yearly, well over a trillion dollars in wasteful and unnecessary government spending directed to the military/industrial complex.
This unnecessary military spending has been all but a sacrosanct and virtually untouchable to serious cuts (or for that matter even given to serious political debate).
But that situation has to change and the American people must be made aware that our endless war driven economy is depleting us financially and is a political straitjacket preventing us from providing the necessary resources that can help us return to and sustain a full employment economy.
Put simply, our endless war driven and debt laden economy is unsustainable (over the long haul) and is not consistent with a viable full employment economy.
If allowed to continue unabated we will be broken financially and economically and with chronically high unemployment levels a civil breakdown seems all too likely to occur (even inevitable).
What is mystifying is there seems no real acknowledgment of the crisis within our midst.
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