Pro Publica: The US Economy Keeps Slip Slidin' Away

Investigative journalism site Pro Publica's Braden Goyette dares to look at the car wreck that is the American economy at the moment, and you just can't look away:

•Growth in number of unemployed people  since March 2011: 545,000


•Number of long-term unemployed people  in June 2011: 6.3 million, or 44.4 percent of the unemployed

•Pace at which jobs were added throughout the late 1990s : 350,00 per month

•Jobs that were added in June : 18,000

•Jobs the U.S. needs to create to 5 percent unemployment rate : 6.8 million, as of January 2011

•Years it will take to get back to an unemployment rate of 5 percent :four years if we're adding jobs at 350,000 per month; 11 years if we're adding jobs at the 2005 rate of 210,000 per month

More details here

DITHOB: OK, so businesses, despite the money cushion provided by the bailout, don't want to hire, because "consumers" aren't spending money, and consumers aren't spending money because the economy is bad; and corporations want the government to cut taxes, so the dwindling number of people who are worknig can theoretically pay less taxes (although the richest folks don't pay taxes at all) and at the same time, the government should reduce budgets and not spend more money for social welfare, health benefits, unemployment, social security, etc., but then those folks won't have any money to spend either, and then the folks who are working, become extremely; cautions with their money and don't spend it either, and the economy doesn't expand, so businesses don't want to hire....around and around and around we go.

Safety net? Social Contract? Civil unrest?

-DITHOB