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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEconomic Slowdown Coming - Even for the Fatcats
http://www.alternet.org/economy/economic-slowdown-coming-even-fatcats?page=0%2C0Theres a remarkable amount of optimism in the US financial media given the underlying health of the economy. Of course, the sort of short term investors that have come to dominate securities trading had been in a risk on/risk off pattern for a protracted period before commodities weakness and the remarkable run of the Nikkei has led to some renewed focus on relative values of various macro plays. But the markets are still dominated by an underlying faith in the willingness of central bankers to protect the backs of investors and limit any downside (while, ironically, many of these same investors howl about ZIRP and QE, which were clearly intended to goose the value of financial assets and real estate, with the hope that would lead to more consumer spending).
And why shouldnt the professional investors (as opposed to widows and orphans who can no longer rely on low risk bond investments to produce adequate income) be pleased as punch? This recovery may be nothing to write home about, but it sure has served those at the very top of the food chain extremely well. Remember, the income gains in this tepid rebound have gone entirely to the top 1% while the rest of us as a whole have lost ground. And aggregates like that mask increasing distress among at the bottom of the economic ladder. For instance, in New York, a city that has benefitted more from the tender ministrations of the Federal Reserve and Treasury than most cities in the US, the number of poor and near-poor increased in 2011. From the New York Times:
The rise in New York Citys poverty rate as a result of the recession has apparently eased, but not before pushing nearly half of the citys population into the ranks of the poor or near-poor in 2011, according to an analysis by the Bloomberg administration.
That year, according to the citys measure, about 46 percent of New Yorkers were making less than 150 percent of the poverty threshold, a benchmark used to describe people who are not officially poor but who still struggle to get by. That represents a rise of more than three percentage points since 2009, when the nations recession officially ended.
****in short -- austerity contagion is growing. is there a point where technocrats and policy makers can't control it?
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Economic Slowdown Coming - Even for the Fatcats (Original Post)
xchrom
Apr 2013
OP
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)1. .
.
marmar
(76,985 posts)2. But the level of cheerleading on sites like Bloomberg has reached the delusional stage......
....... even as you scan down their pages and see stories which say the opposite of the happy talk.
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)4. For fatcats? They'll just print themselves more money
courtesy the FED, and throw more of us out of work, to make their companies' share prices rise on news of "cost-cutting measures."
leeroysphitz
(10,462 posts)5. WHEN have they EVER? n/t
Wednesdays
(17,249 posts)6. In whose universe did the recession end in 2009?
"That represents a rise of more than three percentage points since 2009, when the nations recession officially ended..."
Oh yes, I forgot: the GDP numbers and Dow Jones. Go tell that to the people who were standing in unemployment lines in 2010 and 2011.