WP op-ed by Barbara Ehrenreich: The Boom Was a Bust For Ordinary People

[DeepModem Mom]

DEPT. OF RAW DEALS
The Boom Was a Bust For Ordinary People
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Sunday, February 3, 2008; B01

....For years now, that strange stimulus-crazed beast, the economy, has been going its own way, increasingly disconnected from the toils and troubles of ordinary Americans. The economy, for example, has been expanding, at least until now, and growth is supposed to guarantee general well-being. As long as the gross domestic product grows, World Money Watch's Web site assures us, "so will business, jobs and personal income."

But hellooo, we've had brisk growth for the past few years, as the president has tirelessly reminded us, only without those promised increases in personal income, at least not for the poor and the middle class. According to a study just released by the Economic Policy Institute, real wages actually fell last year. Growth, some of the economists are conceding in perplexity, has been "decoupled" from widely shared prosperity.

I first began to sense this in the boom years of the late 1990s, when I was working in entry-level jobs for my book "Nickel and Dimed." While the stock market soared and fortunes were being made in the time it takes to say "IPO," my $6-to-$8-an-hour co-workers lunched on hot dog buns because that was all they could afford and, in some cases, fretted about whether they could find a safe place to sleep.

Growth is not the only economic indicator that has let us down. In the past five years, America's briskly rising productivity has been the envy of much of the world. But again, there's been no corresponding increase in most people's wages. It's not supposed to be this way, of course. Economists have long believed that some sort of occult process would intervene and adjust wages upward as people worked harder and more efficiently....

***

A century ago, Henry Ford realized that his company would only prosper if his own workers earned enough to buy Fords. But, like Wal-Mart, too many of our employers today haven't figured out that their cruelly low wages would eventually curtail their own growth and profits....We need less titillating talk about "stimulus" and more commitment to some fundamental repairs -- higher wages, a real safety net and a return to progressive taxation among them. The challenge isn't just to prop up stock prices but to rebuild an economy in which everyone shares the good times -- and no one is consigned to a permanent recession.

(Barbara Ehrenreich's books include "Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America" and "Bait and Switch: The Futile Pursuit of the American Dream.")

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/01/AR2008020102828_pf.html

[PDJane]

1. It's time to get progressive, folks.

The Washington concensus is a recipe for a third world nation.

[earth mom]

2. Meanwhile people here on DU support corporatists Hillary & Obama who've sold their souls 2 the devil

I am so disgusted. :puke:

p.s. Barbara Ehrenreich ROCKS!!!