Employment & Economic Disparity Graphs

I saw a diary at DailyKos the other day that I wanted to spread to just a little wider audience.  Some are from the Economic Policy Institute and some are from other sources.  I will reprint one of the graphs – it’s one that I’ve seen monthly for the past 3 years and think it speaks volumes as to why the Occupy Movement remains viable and is growing.

Calculated Risk

As you can see, horrific job losses continue 4 years after the month of peak employment.  This is the longest such occurrence in modern history in the U.S.  If we extrapolate that trend, employment numbers last seen in 2007 will finally be achieved in 2015.  Meanwhile, population will increase and replacement jobs will continue to pay less than the originally held jobs.

At this point, it is worth pointing out that President Obama needs to start owning the economic conditions his policies have created.  He can’t keep pointing to Congress as if they’re exclusively the problem while he tries to play Mr. Nice Guy in Washington.  Americans don’t want Mr. Nice Guy and barely functional economic policies.  They want fully functional policies and politicians that can get them enacted.  Everything else is secondary.

In the larger scheme of things however, this graph shows one of the effects of Teabagger economic policy: longer and longer employment recoveries.  Make no mistake, this is exactly the type of situation that the 1% want to occur.  Will there be recoveries after the next couple of recessions?  I still think we’re witnessing a new normal condition of our economy.  How soon that theory is validated or refuted remains to be seen.

What Liberal Agenda?

Laurence Lewis at dKos nails it:

Liberalism was rejected, but not by the voters. Some voters may have been fooled into thinking they were rejecting liberalism, but did the Democrats even attempt a truly liberal agenda?

• Did the Democrats pass a stimulus package as large as liberal economists Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and Nouriel Roubini said we needed?
• Did the Democrats pass Cramdown or a WPA-style jobs program?
• Did the Democrats even put a single payer health care plan on the table? Did they fight for a public option?
• Did the Democrats reject the generals’ request to further escalate the war in Afghanistan?
• Did the Democrats shut down Gitmo, secret renditions, or domestic spying?
• Did the Democrats end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell or the Defense Of Marriage Act?
• Did the Democrats even begin to address immigration reform?
• Did the Democrats pass Cap-and-Trade or respond to the BP oil disaster by ending deepwater drilling?

The list could go on and on.

Ignore the pundits and remember the battles over the issues, including the battles that never happened. The voters didn’t reject a liberal agenda because they didn’t see a liberal agenda. Many wouldn’t know what a liberal agenda looks like, because no one has bothered to show them one.