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Recession--Who Cares?
The soothsayers have slaughtered the ox and are examining the gloppy entrails for signs: rising unemployment, a falling dollar, weak consumer spending, the credit crisis, a swooning stock market. Could there be something wrong here? Could we actually be approaching a, God forbid, recession?
To which the only sane response is: Who cares? According to a CNN poll, 57 percent of Americans thought we were already in a recession a month ago. Economists may complain that this is only because the public is ignorant of the technical--or at least the newspapers' standard--definition of a recession, which specifies that there must be at least two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the GDP. But most of the public employs the more colloquial definition of a recession, which is hard times. If hard times have already fallen on a majority of Americans, then "recession" doesn't seem to be a very useful term any more.
The economists' odd fixation on growth as a measure of economic well-being puts them in a parallel universe of their own. WorldMoneyWatch's website tells us that, for example, that "The GDP growth rate is the most important indicator of economic health. If GDP is growing, so will business, jobs and personal income." And the latest issue of US News and World Report advises, "The key... for America is to keep its economy growing as fast as possible without triggering inflation."
But hellooo, we've had brisk growth for the last few years, as the President always likes to remind us, only without those promised increases in personal income, at least not for the middle class. Growth, some of the economists are conceding in perplexity, has been "de-coupled" from mass prosperity.
Growth is not the only economic indicator that has let us down recently. In the last five years, America's briskly rising productivity has been the envy of much of the world. But at the same time, real wages have actually declined. 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.
And what about the unemployment rate? The old liberal faith was that "full employment" would create a workers' paradise, with higher wages and enhanced bargaining power for the little guy and gal. But we've had nearly full employment, or at least an unemployment rate of under 5 percent, for years now, again, without the predicted gains. What the old liberals weren't counting on was a depressed minimum wage, impotent unions, and a witch's brew of management strategies to hold wages and salaries down.
Now if those great and solemn economic indicators--growth, productivity and employment rates--have become de-coupled from most people's lived experience, then there's something wrong with the economists, the economy, or both. The clue lies in the word "most." We have become so unequal as a nation that we increasingly occupy two different economies--one for the rich and one for everyone else--and the latter has been in a recession, if not a depression, for a long, long time. Not all economists can bring themselves to admit this.
I suspect that America's fabulous growth in productivity is another illustration of the disconnect between economic measures and human experience. It's been attributed to better education and technological advances, which would be nice to believe in. But a revealing 2001 study by McKinsey also credited America's productivity growth to "managerial innovations" and cited Wal-Mart as a model performer, meaning that we are also looking at fiendish schemes to extract more work for less pay. Yes, you can generate more output per apparent hour of work by falsifying time records, speeding up assembly lines, doubling workloads, and cutting back on breaks. Productivity may look good from the top, but at the middle and the bottom it can feel a lot like pain.
When employees are squeezed hard enough, then you have the possibility of a genuine recession as technically defined. People buy less, so growth declines, to the point where even the economic over-class has to sit up and take notice. This is happening in Japan, where a recent Wall Street Journal headline announces: "Growing Reliance on Temps Holds Back Japan's Rebound: Firms Increasingly Add Part-Time Workers; Spending Power Lags." The US, where consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the economy compared to a little more than half in Japan, is even more vulnerable to a downturn in personal consumption.
What is this fixation on growth anyway? As a general rule of biological survival, any creature or entity that depends on perpetual growth is well worth avoiding, lest you be eaten alive. As Bill McKibben argues in his book Deep Economy, the "cult of growth" has led to global warming, ghastly levels of pollution, and diminishing resources. Tumors grow, at least until they kill their hosts; economies ought to be sustainable.
Apocalypse aside, the mantra of growth has deceived us for far too long. What it translates into is: Don't worry about the relative size of your slice, just concentrate on growing the pie! Now, with a recession threatening even more suffering for those who are already struggling, may be the perfect time to get out the pie-cutter again. Too bad that the one leading Democratic candidate who promises to do so now appears to be on the ropes.
228 Comments so far
Show AllClass warfare has been going on for some time now.
The rich have ALWAYS practiced it against the poor, its just that, under GW Bush, they were able to convince the poor that to say so was to practice the reverse.
Thanx to Ehrenrich for pointing out, repeatedly, that (as has always been so), it is the rich that practice predation of the poor (indeed, how else to become rich? Ask any lion).
KEM,
About four years ago, I went to hear Michael Parenti speak at a lecture. He told the audience that they, the ruling class, wanted to turn the clock back to 1900, when you had to work six days a week, no public benefits, no unions, (there weren't many) no unemployment insurance, no social security, medicare, public education, etc.
What you just described is SOP for the new world order in America. Wait until they bring back debtor's prison.
"Whadda you mean you can't pay our usurious rates of interest! Take him to the Bastille!"
"They hate us for our freedoms."
It's time for the General Strike of all working people to shut this country down.
annabelle, when you hear on the news that 10,000 or 100,000 jobs were created in a given month, that means new jobs that did not exist the month before. In other words, it is a running count of the total number of people on the payrolls for all non-farm occupations.
What you may not know, is that it takes about 150,000 new jobs created per month to place new people entering the workforce. That includes those entering from high school and higher education.
Job creation under the Bush administration, all seven years of it, has been absolutely dismal when compared to the preceding 8 years of the Clinton administration. And, not only has the number of jobs created been very poor, but the quality of jobs and pay for them, has been in serious decline.
The employment figures also fail to acurately represent the actual numbers of the unemployed, as those who exhaust their unemployment compensation and quit looking for jobs are dropped from the statistics.
If you really want to investigate this, there are websites you can visit at the US Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There are easy-to-read graphs and charts on these sites. I hope this helps.
Six years ago, I worked for a large and very prestigeous tour bus company in New Jersey before I retired. They had one division of over 100 employees, and one with 230.
They finally folded the 100 employees division, primarily because of the medical insurance costs. The drivers and mechanics were in the teamsters union and they had a terrific health insurance program. Now most of the drivers are back to $9.50 to $10 an hour, no benefits and the office staff people all had to find jobs. Many went to Wal-Mart or other such work and no benefits. A few eventually lost their homes and now live in slum areas.
Just one small example of what is occurring across the entire country. Thanks to Gorge. Idon't care what kind of sex Bill had in the White House. It must have kept his brain active. Maybe he got wax jobs.
Hi Kem. Yes, and all this happens after the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that were supposed to create millions of new jobs. What it actually created was a lot of new millionaires and billionaires at the expense of working people.
HI Jake, long time no see. Hey look up the word sophist. When you write your next resime, put in the descriptive paragraph, that your are one.
"What is this fixation on growth anyway? As a general rule of biological survival, any creature or entity that depends on perpetual growth is well worth avoiding, lest you be eaten alive."
Growth is truly the root problem -- the uncontrolled growth of the human population on this planet!
One reason we should "care" about who all may be too worried about recession, is that our Federal Reserve appears to me to have become quite politicized. They very well know there that American interest rates are too low to be effectively fighting the increasing inflation (erosion) of our dollar, yet even as we speak today, Chairman Bernanke is under tremendous pressure from the markets and the administration to GO THE WRONG WAY again and cut rates further to avoid the dreaded "recession." This is not good news for anybody who has attempted to save money in an interest-bearing bank account and who wonders why such CD savings have been a losing proposition since the day Bush was elected. It's as though the most personally conservative folks (the FDIC-insured savers) don't know how the "political" conservatives are working specifically AGAINST them.
The forced growth of corporations to provide profits is one of the top problems.
Economic growth never made sense to me.
Why not stability?
The stock market is worshiped like a religion.
why can't I have whatever and however much I damn well want?
(rhetorical)
"But we've had nearly full employment, or at least an unemployment rate of under 5 percent, for years now, again, without the predicted gains."
Actually, this is entirely false. The TRUE unemployment rate is hovering around 11.3 percent. Our government has been pumping this bullshit 4.7% rate because they're not counting certain segments of the total unemployed population.
Economists have become nothing more than whores for corporate and government elites. Their serve their masters and no one else. They are a scourge on American life. May they rot in their misguided beliefs and their wealth.
RichM January 10th, 2008 12:45 pm wrote:
no matter how accurate it is. Basically, you're just not allowed to go out there and say anything except "I love America, and we're going to make her even greater!" No deviation from this script is tolerated.
RichM, I think thats says it all.
While I like Barbara Ehrenreich's writing and generally agree with her -- especially this line: "We have become so unequal as a nation that we increasingly occupy two different economies–one for the rich and one for everyone else–and the latter has been in a recession, if not a depression, for a long, long time." -- she neglected to mention that the reason we've seemed to have low unemployment figures recently has to do with two major factors:
1) Since only those collecting unemployment are counted as unemployed, those whose benefits have run out, or have been doing shoestring-budget home office work part-time, making much less than they were before, are not counted.
2) Another factor is the growth of companies hired by employers to automatically challenge all unemployment benefits. Several friends have been through this scam. Whereas previously, if the company laid you off, you could just go down and collect unemployment compensation, now your eligibility is challenged, and so you must appear before a panel to determine if you qualify. I've been told about half the people eligible for UC, workers who would have quickly gotten benefits before, never show up, or show up unprepared for these hearings and consequently never collect UC, so they are never counted as unemployed. This is despicable, but entirely legal.
Have you noticed as the rich get richer they also get meaner and stingier?
"But we've had nearly full employment, or at least an unemployment rate of under 5 percent, for years now,..."
I agree completely with arise257. The 5% unemployment rate is more governmental fiction. A friend of mine has been out of work for nearly two years now and is reduced to doing temp work (12 days of work in 3 months). This is a highly educated, experienced legal secretary who is told by all four of the agencies she's working through, "There's just no work out there."
The growth of our disaster capitalist economy is not a good thing. Hooray for recession, and let's all root for the next Great Depression. Maybe the neoconmen won't be able to afford wars with Iran and Venezuela. Maybe defense contractors will have to shut down and stop shipments of clusterbombs and mines to Israel and Pakistan. Maybe when corporate CEOs are standing in breadlines populist politicians will gain control, and start feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and educating the republicans
....sorry, I meant the stupid.
In the medical model of health, growth without limits is called cancer, and the way it is treated is to cut, burn and poison it out of existence. Is that what is happening to our "economy"? I watched CNN for a brief period this morning, and they were reporting on the results of the Christmas shopping season, which showed all retailers except Costco and Wal-Mart with deep negative numbers. Yet, during the "shopping season" of December, reports were that the retailers were doing OK. So what happened between then and now? Artifice and obfuscation. "The Markets" dictate what is reported and how. As Barbara indicates, the reality is that we are in very serious trouble and this is going to be felt by all, including the very wealthy, who must depend on the consumption(I believe that is also a name for tuberculosis) of the lower and middle classes for their survival. Growth without end is very unhealthy, and denial of reality is life threatening. The first step to healing any disease is the recognition that there is a disease to be healed. Not until we, the people, acknowledge this dis-ease, can we address its need for healing.
We may feel a gut reaction to make criminals out of those we think caused this problem, but that does not correct the problem. What does correct it is to starve the dis-eased system of its lifeblood, money, and treat the cause, greed and our need to be approved for our comsumption. This is not a small task, but our survival as a global culture depends on making the shift to sustainability and a recognition of our interdependence with all of creation.
peace,
st john
They HAVE to keep the momentum going to keep the house of cards they've built from caving... Keep this in mind, even if we hit a full depression, the feds and their lapdogs in the media will never admit it.
A recent George Will piece explained that the middle class is in great shape because the only ones who have moved out of the middle class over the last 28 years have almost entirely moved up. George did 'forget' to use inflation in his argument and also used the word 'household' instead of individual. Clearly American 'households' have been somewhat able to keep their income at a steady level because of increased multiple wage earners per family. I was quite appalled by Will's massive deception in an especially snobbish article. I used to have a smidgen of respect for Mr. Will, but not anymore.
"The TRUE unemployment rate is hovering around 11.3 percent."
Source please.
"they're not counting certain segments of the total unemployed population."
If you are not employed, and are not actively looking for whatever reason, they don't count you as part of the workforce, nor should they.
"1) Since only those collecting unemployment are counted as unemployed, those whose benefits have run out... are not counted."
Source please.
RichM - a good analysis and description of growth vs stability.
I might suggest a minor revision: Instead of "..the idea that if there's enough growth, 'everyone' can be rich", the Great American Dream is really "..the idea that if there's enough growth, 'everyone' has the same opportunity to be rich".
But its just a dream, remember?
"Maybe when corporate CEOs are standing in breadlines"
Not bloody likely!
Excellent article.
Over the past several decades, middle-class Americans have been so busy just trying to keep up with the ever-increasing cost of living and dwindling incomes that they have failed to recognize the fact that they are rapidly losing ground to the ultra-wealthy.
Even during a failing economy, the ultra-wealthy have the resources to continue profiting... where the average person gets caught up in just trying to make enough to pay the mortgage, feed a family, pay medical bills and send their kids to college.
How many people in a middle-class neighborhood buy gold or Euros when the dollar is falling in value worldwide and the stock market is stagnant?
The average person has lost at least 15% in spending power since 1980, while the ultra-wealthy have nearly tripled their assets.
Meanwhile, our government feeds us glowing (but totally misleading) reports about how well the economy is doing overall.
All a person has to do is look at the EMPLOYED figures over the past two decades to see that we are being lied to regarding the number of UNEMPLOYED... and those Department of Labor Statistics charts don't even allow for the estimated 18 million illegal invaders that have entered the country since 2001!
"The average person has lost at least 15% in spending power since 1980".
I'd like a source for this too, please, or if not, at least a definition of exactly what you mean by "has lost at least 15% in spending power ".
I'm interested primarily in two kinds of economic growth:
1) Buying power of the dollar for Americans earning the median income.
2) Percentage of real estate equity that the median earning adult American owns.
All of this growth bullshit is framed from an investment banker's perspective. How about Americans getting on top of the equity game, so they can work half-time if they wish, for a non-profit, self-employed, etc. and not constantly have to face eviction or a declining dollar? It's clear that we're kept running on a treadmill. The cost of real estate is priced just out of reach so that we entertain the American "Dream".
Watched a financial group from the Brookings Institute on CSPAN this morning on the coming recession. They figure the figures are dire enough for something to be done about it.
They talked about ways to get money flowing into the peoples' pockets again so they'd go shopping.
They discussed lengthening unemployment - but that would just give people reason to not bother looking for another job longer.
Their concensus, finally, was a billion(s) dollar package congress needs to push through - hopefully with none of the democrat's earmarks attached - that would go to the corporations - of course.
I'm still for a national holiday from shopping. Show them where the real power lies. But maybe that's what's already happening?
Thank you, Barbara, for (as usual) a clear analysis of where we are.
Growth for its own sake is the ideology best suited to cancer cells. What we need, desperately, is conditions for full flourishing, not defined by quantities of stuff, but by relationships, communities, healthy people and healthy planet.
Here is some information on how the unemployed are counted:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.faq.htm
From the above page:
Is the count of unemployed persons limited to just those people receiving
unemployment insurance benefits?
No; the estimate of unemployment is based on a monthly sample survey of
households. All persons who are without jobs and are actively seeking and
available to work are included among the unemployed. (People on temporary
layoff are included even if they do not actively seek work.) There is no
requirement or question relating to unemployment insurance benefits in the
monthly survey.
Recession??? We are alredy in a recession, the "news" just hasn't reported it yet.
It's the depression that is coming that we'd better prepare for; and who will care? EVERYONE will. Wait and see, you can then say, "The big mouthed idiot told us so".
Corruption and lies are so dominant in our economic system that they define it. Honesty and fair play appear to be cancers in a corrupt system and they are aggressively removed resulting in corruption being again strengthened.
Apply your truth, honesty, and hard work to an alternative system that is mostly disconnected from the corrupt economy. This has become increasingly possible today with the establishment of business based upon healthy and more sustainable lifeways. Spend your time and money in the green alternative economy to bring about more rapid change. The dominant corrupt economy will collapse and the new alternative economy needs to be strong enough to supplant the old.
Do remember, sometimes shopping is good. I've made great strides at switching out incandescent bulbs for flourescent and LED. I will soon finish having all computer, tv, stereo attached to power strips which I will shut off when not in use to avoid the rather large 'phantom' electric loss from this equipment.
For a very accurate picture of what the cost of our consumer-driven habits is, please view a 20-minute video, The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard, www.storyofstuff.com. She walks you through the process of producing goods and what the resources, labor and disposal cost our planet. Please view this video and share it with others.
peace,
st john
For an example of class perspectives-
My mother told me that times were getting so hard that soon we'd all have to be servants again.
A few months later, I read an article in which the author stated that times were getting so tough that soon we would all have servants again.
That's the class difference between us and the pundits who interpret reality for us.
Jake, I went to your site, and it states TWO versions of unemployment figures. The "establishment" figures, which more accurately reflect unemployment, and "official" unemployment, which only counts people receiving unemployment compensation. Naturally, the Bush administration refers to the official version in their press releases. Hence the 4.7% figure is false. Did you carefully read the entire page on the site you referenced in all it's fine print? There is also a tremendous problem with underemployed and a whole new class of workers, "temps", who have no benefits. That used to be the province of temp agencies, but companies have been converting their own employees into temps, and cutting their hours at the same time.
Barbara is correct, the economy may not "yet" be in a recession, but workers have been in one for a long time now. If a recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth, what is the definition of two decades of declining wages?
kathyodat
Economics is officially and justifibly termed, the "Theory" of economics. Kaythodat is correct too.
yuh ain't seen nothin' yet.
"Jake, I went to your site, and it states TWO versions of unemployment figures."
And you demonstrate that you misunderstood it:
"The "establishment" figures, which more accurately reflect unemployment, "
Wrong, it has a narrower margin of error *for what it measures*.
"and "official" unemployment, "
There is no such phrase on the page. The other survey is the "household survey", which has a smaller sample size but includes broader aspects of the situation than the establishment survey such as self employment.
"which only counts people receiving unemployment compensation. "
The household survey doesn't even ask about who is collecting benefits, it answers the following question:
"Is the count of unemployed persons limited to just those people receiving
unemployment insurance benefits?"
With this:
"There is no requirement or question relating to unemployment insurance benefits in the
monthly survey."
Which directly contradicts what you state. Then you go on:
"Naturally, the Bush administration refers to the official version in their press releases."
Its the BLS who releases the figures for *both* surveys, Bush and the media outlets can then do whatever they want with it.
"Hence the 4.7% figure is false."
You are wrong.
"Did you carefully read ..."
It's pretty clear to me that you did not.
When the government releases the 'new jobs created' figures each month does that affect the current job market, or does it take into consideration the hundreds of young people that reach full time working status at eighteen or whatever age they are considered to be employable? Most of the time it looks as if there are more young people entering the job market that new jobs created. Unemployment in Michigan alone is way above the national average companies are still laying off employees. I agree with Barbara, we here in Michigan have seen a steady decline, especially in the last couple of years. Yup. The R word is already here, has settled in and it doesn't look very rosey for a big turn around any time soon. Maybe the Feds could print up a little moola for the folks here.
"When the government releases the 'new jobs created' figures each month does that affect the current job market, or does it take into consideration the hundreds of young people that reach full time working status at eighteen or whatever age they are considered to be employable?"
I don't belive jobs created/lost has anything to do with fluctuations in the size of the workforce. Long term, with the aging population, assuming people at retirement age do retire, there will be many more people leaving the workforce than entering it.
Thanks Jakenewton. I was hoping someone would pass on their ideas on the subject.
GDP measures the amount of money that changes hands. So if less money changes hands, that is negative growth.
But what if an important commodity, like, oh, let's say oil for instance, skyrockets in price, so twice as much money changes hands when the same amount of oil is used for fuel? If inflation is not measured correctly so the fall in the value of the currency is not figured in properly, everyone can be starving and living in a culvert and paying millions for slice of bread but GDP will still grow.
People are no warmer in their homes and they have less money for anything else, but GDP stays up because of all the extra money changing hands for the same amount of oil.
Since lots of less valuable money is changing hands there is no recession - people are just poorer.
And if you remove food, oil and housing from the basket of items used to calculate inflation (yes that was done years ago - those items are not used to calculate inflation figures.) we don't have inflation either - we just have higher prices!
Welcome to the Brave New World.
We've been cooking the unemployment numbers since the early 70's when everything went to hell for the first time. When the numbers got too bad they changed the way they counted. Having eaten from the Apple, the next time they "needed" to change the count method, it was much easier. BLS does what they are fucking told to do and they say what they are fucking told to say. Just like HUD and OSHA and FDA and whoeverthehellelse. Hellfire followes disobedience and betrayal.
Why do you think it took damn near WWIII for the Joint Chiefs, State, and the CIA to pull the string on the Sock-Puppet's Iran Mania? Every one of those guys is going to pay for the rest of their lives - that's why they had to Inter-Agency amortize the pain - and Chaney's still trying to start a nuclear war with the World. Darth Vader wants to die and take the world with him.
This monster has cooked the beauracracy a long time ago. NUmbers are whatever they want them to say Today. What does your skin tell you?
Peace.
jakenewton, it is not the numbers that lie or tell the truth. It is what it feels like. You may not agree with this, given that you are obviously fact-based, but the way to know the truth is to check into how you feel. I have "felt" for years that there was a reckoning coming with the disparity of the haves and have nots. The stock market is a manipulation of the wealthy powerbrokers to disguise how money is made and spent and held. It is artificial. Nothing is produced or consumed when the numbers go up and down. They presume to track growth and monetory policy, but it is no more real than gambling on red or black in a casino. You try to calculate the odds of a number coming up, or a color being selected, but then you get double 00 and all bets are off, so to speak. What does it feel like to you, now? Do you "feel" prosperous? Do you experience prosperity all around you? Do you have to step over homeless people in the street, or put up with beggars soliciting for small change to buy a cup of coffee or some food? These are the signs of the health of an economy, not what the Dow Jones Average is. Allow your heart to inform you, not your ego brain.
peace,
st john
Well, it's not just feel -- it's to do your own numbers. Ask yourself if something is fishy with salaries in some fields about the same that they were a decade ago, while housing has doubled in cost.
Yes, you are also correct, Paul. I think that the feeling comes first, but the numbers may also give a direction to the feeling. Or, the numbers may set off a feeling that they do not "feel" right. So, yes, may do our own numbers to verify our feeling.
Thanks for the correction.
peace,
st john
Jakenewton, glad you trust Bush's government to tell you the truth.
I'm sure you also believe their stats of the number of dead Americans and civilians in Iraq, that Valerie Plame was not a covert CIA agent, that eight federal attorneys were not fired for political reasons, that the US does not torture people, and that Alberto Gonzales was competent to do his job.
The Dept. of Labor is run by neocon gadfly Elaine Chao, never known as a friend to labor. Kathleen P. Utgoff is the Commissioner of Labor Statistics at the Department of Labor. Here's a brief bio of Utgoff:
"From 1995 to 1999, Utgoff was the Vice President and Director of the Center for Naval Analyses where she was responsible for CAN research infrastructure, logistics/maintenance/readiness, manpower, personnel, training, medical issues and environmental analysis. She was Chief Economist and Partner at Groom and Nordberg, a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in life and health insurance, pensions and international tax issues from 1989 to 1995, and she was Executive Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation from 1985 to 1989. Utgoff was a Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisors from 1983 to 1985, and an Economist at the Center for Naval Analysis from 1974 to 1983. She holds an undergraduate degree from California State University at Northridge and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles."
-- Nominations and Appointments, from the official White House web site. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011211-8.html
In other words, Utgoff has worked most of her career in a Pentagon-related job, a corporate position, or for the Reagan Administration. Good credentials for data reliability, huh?
Aside from that, I couldn't find any indication of the number of households included in the BLS monthly survey, or what the exact criteria were for the survey. In a nation of over 150 million potential workers, a survey of a few thousand or even a hundred thousand would not accurately reflect the true employment situation.
As the page you cited says:
"The household survey and establishment survey both produce sample-based estimates of employment and both have strengths and limitations."
One of its 'limitations' is serving the ends of the Bush Administration and the future 'strength' of the GOP.
GDP IS DOWN!!!!!!!!
The author conveniently misses the point. Government figures for inflation, unemployment, and GDP are all fake. Please check out shadowstats.com for the real figures and an explanation of how the government is lying to you. The truth is that both inflation and unemployment have been double digit for years and GDP has been negative for over a year.
"There are three kinds of lies, lies, damn lies, and statistics", Mark Twain.
Most here probably agree that whether its population growth, economic growth, or tissue growth, unlimited growth is cancer. Big Money touts growth as the panacea so they don't have to talk about sharing resources and the growing wealth gap.