The Real Economy For the 75%

[Yo_Mama]

Two graphs. No more need be said, except that if you calculated this per capita, it would look even worse:


This one is just the "both" lines:


Most of the country is in recession.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Can you please elaborate?

Apparently more needs to be said.

As I understand the graphs, they are the trend line of the inflation rate of food and gas, year over year and over two years.

I get that inflation of commodities, in the absence of wage gains, bites the 75%, but I'm unsure how this is indicative of recession.

[Yo_Mama]

2. No, they are how much people buy

Table 2.3.3 in BEA's NIPA tables covers personal consumption.

Those graphs are of price-adjusted (real) changes in the levels of purchases of Food at home and Gas & energy, showing changes over one and two years.

Over the long run, when those go negative it is associated with a recession.

The graphs aren't of the amount of gas or food that each individual consumes, but that the entire population consumes. Since the population is still growing in absolute numbers, if the amount stays stable many individuals are cutting their personal consumption.

[Ghost Dog]

4. Ok: charts of change in price-adjusted consumption of food & gas by the whole population of the USA

over time illustrate the real decline in vital economic activity, and the degree to which the US has already re-entered recession.

This is bad economic news, especially since, under unfettered vulture capitalism, the decline is disorganised and unjustly hurts so many to the benefit of so few. But it is perhaps worth noting that this is precisely what environmentalists say is what the USA needs to do (reduce consumption), and would be wise to do in a carefully, intellligently organised way beneficial to human society because otherwise 'Natural Forces' will make it happen their way.

Question: To the extent that unregulated crony vulture capitalism is not exactly 'carefully, intelligently organised', can it (ie. Corruption & Greed) be considered to be a 'Natural Force'? What other natural (human) forces, such as morality, community and compassion, can be strong enough to, in opposition, organize the economics of human society in a careful, intelligent way?

[txlibdem]

6. Justice, equality, equity, fairness, a level playing field.

The Capitalistas have usurped The Constitution, infiltrated government at all levels, and have effectively staged a slow-motion coup. We no longer have any control over our government: the top 1% controls (and in most cases) even writes the (favorable only to the top 1%) legislation that their kept politicians will enact into law. Predators behave in ways that are in line with their "natural" instincts, the 1% are predators. We need to control their actions using OUR guiding principles of justice, equality, economic equity, our sense of fairness and our belief in creating a level playing field.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. the chart that curled my hair today:

[Yo_Mama]

5. Yes. Indeed

We are headed straight for the wall.

With any luck we will maintain growth in 2012 - but it will be very slow. Private debt is no longer ballooning, but now public debt is.

So we are in a very difficult situation.


Up until just a few years ago, we had a public/private balance that looked okay and a GDP growth/public debt growth ratio that looked okay. But the massive accumulation of private debt (and a lot of that was on corporations) was the hidden factor.

The GDP release today (advance) meant that the annual GDP growth rate for 2011 was close to 1.7%. Now, the US economy has never managed to grow at that rate for a year without falling back into recession. Maybe that will not happen this time, but the result is a recession for most people, so the fiscal difference is very little. People aren't on food stamps because they are lazy, but because they can't find well-paid work, or full-time work, or, in many cases, even part-time work.

The private sector cannot assume more debt - it is working off the overload. Households need to generate more savings, not less. We have the huge bulge of boomers who have to retire, and most of them don't have the assets to do so.

And now the federal government is very close to the debt wall. Spain's debt-to-GDP ratio is very close to ours. We're not far from disaster.