Regarding Obamacare and small businesses. The word that comes to my mind to describe Obama policies is "confiscation." If the health insurance bailout taxation doesn't get you, the state takeover of 401Ks will. And I can't wait for Social Security reform being done with simultaneous world war on terror. The whole thing has become a nightmare. And Ben Bernanke was so sure he could stop a depression via his famous last resort of dropping money out of helicopters. Want to get rid of Bernanke? Fine by me. Just get rid of the privatized finance playground that made billions for Goldman Sachs and paupers of the rest of us.

Why would Merkan Killer-Armaments & Petro-Plantations, Inc. shareholders want their CEO to do something that would reduce the size of the exploitable labor force?

Newsflash - a lot of those baby boomers also need the work, and they have mortgages and families, children, grandchildren who need to go to college and pay off the tuition. People with steady jobs or desirable skills are in a fortunate position, yes, but if gens X Y etc are having problems finding work, it's not the fault of selfish baby boomers. What would you have them do? Move into an empty crate in the alley, ruin their families so you can have their job? In times like these, people with incomes are entirely responsible and reasonable to hang onto them as long as they can, and thank their lucky stars. They are paying their taxes and probably supporting members of your generation who are still living at home for free.

It's a horrible time for everyone, jobless and working. Look at the big picture and place the blame where it belongs - on the Wall Street and corporate elite. They're the ones who have created this mess, stripping boomers of wages, benefits, holidays, savings, family time, mortgages, health insurance, etc. Maybe the bright side for the young jobless person is that he's not yet burdened with all the responsibilities, that he's not yet seen his life savings get sucked up into some fat cat's fleet of yachts in Monaco.

You're right of course, when you point out that a decent social infrastructure, such as universal medicare, social safety nets, would go a long way to creating the security that makes life possible for more people, young or old. That's where your attention should be directed.

This reminds me very much of the complaints of men, in the 70's and 80's, that "allowing" women in the workplace drove down wages. They were right, in a way. That was a big part of the plan. But wages started freezing for everyone, and women still earned 30% less than men, forcing some underbidding. "Allowing" women to work at jobs conveniently hid the fact that wages were stagnating, and the extra bit of income allowed people to maintain their consumerist lifestyles. But it wasn't women's fault - they were merely pawns in the game you see being played out today.

Apparently our wages are still too high, our benefits still too lavish to suit the ruling class. You need to realize that this is class war, and the middle class has lost - not because of women or boomers, but because the weaponry of the other side is so devastatingly powerful and ubiquitous. It's not boomers who are starving you; it's the Beast-With-Two-Backs, Wall Street and Washington. They also have another extremely effective weapon in their toxic arsenal - getting us to blame each other, though we're all in the same boat, when we should be ganging up on them.

BTW, I am a little too old to be a boomer. I took a cut in pay so a young person in my field could keep his job. And I retired 5 years early, allowing new people in. Currently, I work as a voluteer. Rethink your stereotypes, please. There are a lot of oldies like us.

And as I've stated on several occasions, Hoover was a far better man than Obama, and Reagan, and Both Bushes, and Clinton. He was left of them on almost every aspect of governance, plus he had a sense of morality totally absent from the presidents I listed. Above all, Hoover was a man wanting World Peace.

I will try to be the devil's advocate for Hoover in this comparison with Obama. Hoover was not an economist. He distrusted them. In addition this was by all means the most stupendously great recession/depression descending on the nation and little or no experience of how to deal with it. Hoover made mistakes and so did Roosevelt. Obama has no excuse. He should have learned from the Hoover/FDR pratfalls. Does Obama know that the nation was not at war during the years 1928-1941? It appears that he does not realize this when I consider his profligate spending on his pet-wars.
Given its size and tenacity the current recession/depression during a time of war is something entirely new. Anyone who believes that Obama's pet-wars will stimulate the economy had better make an appointment with his/her shrink.

Mordechai.

I agree that I understand almost nothing of Wall Street and Washington's shenanigans. However I do understand a principle that J. M. Keynes offered: when the rise of mean personal income lags behind inflation for many successive years there will inevitably come an eco-financial crash or else will make recovery much more hazardous. This principle is so simple that you can explain it to a preschooler with some appropriate example such as: "if dad earns less money and we must pay more at the grocery store we can buy fewer sweets and colas for you".

One of the most widespread misunderstandings of how and why the Great Depression ended soon after the end of WW2 is that the postwar boom was merely due to waging war. (A variant is that capitalism needs to make war to keep making profits). The true reason, in my opinion, was then that wages had risen more than inflation during and immediately after the war which caused an exuberant boom in the purchases of cars, radios, TV's, homes, refrigerators, dishwashers, and food. If you doubt this ask a couple that got married in, say, 1945 or '46.

Bringing people back into employment today but at drastically reduced average wages will not work in the long run but will cause new defaulting soon. Perhaps my view is revolutionary but the unions should now fight for higher wages for those still at work because only that will pick up our wage-based economy and will in turn spurn our capitalist wage-based economy to become more efficient and hire more workers.

The bugaboo in all of this is the banking system. I think that we need a huge "public bank option" essentially run by the Federal Government in competition with the "privately owned banks". Within a few decades we will learn which system is better for the nation and allow the other system to die.

When I contemplate the huge funds funneled to the banking system by the Federal Government the Obama administration is already running some sort of "public bank option" for the biggies except this is patently the wrong "public bank option" because it is a palliative and it will not cure anything. With my "options" privately owned banks will not be bailed out ever again. If you fail, you die.

That is quite so. Anyone who knows anything about broader cosmic 'law' knows this as well. Ghandi gave us an insight into it with his 7 deadly sins:

1) Wealth without Work
2) Pleasure without Conscience
3) Science without Humanity
4) Knowledge without Character
5) Politics without Principle
6) Commerce without Morality
7)Worship without Sacrifice

We can see the first 6 in full bloom today. The jargon and subterfuge has evolved around them, but the principle is the same.

What has to be realized is that EVERYTHING must be PAID for. There is an expenditure of energy and resources required to build and/or change the form/function of anything. Generally, this translates to effort, whether 'slave' effort or otherwise. SOMEONE has to make an investment of energy for any kind of production to take place.

Presently, we have a society based upon exploitation, and is why things have been divided into classes, namely, the 'haves' and the 'have nots.' What the haves fail to realize (or do not care) is that within human beings there are severe psychological consequences--translating to the suppression of vital energies within the oppressed individual--for those who are exploited, and thus find it impossible to achieve a balance in their individual lives, leading to drug use, consumerism (which is encouraged, regardless of the consequences to the environment or desperation due to debt), and other means of 'escape' in an attempt to achieve a balance.

The haves are not immune either; they suffer the direct consequences of committing sins 1 and 2, and indirect consequences for 3, 4, 5, and 6.

The further out of balance things become, the more dangerous for mankind, including the haves. So, regardless of the gibberish and high-sounding jargon, cosmic debt (nature's debt works here as well) remains the same, and must, in one way or another be paid.

Don't waste your time with wildly inaccurate US unemployment numbers. Use the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment numbers and figure out for yourself and according to your standards what the real unemployment rate is.

Well said.
And let's not forget the CPI. Williams at Shadow statistics has shown how the Consumer Price Index was gamed to under represent inflation for the past 30 years or more. This threw a wrench in all the labor contracts that adjusted wages using the CPI, not to mention pensions and social security. Finally the effect on the government's poverty line amount was to move it lower and lower (even as the figure gradually rises in nominal dollars) due to the gamed CPI. Rather than correct this crap, they are allowing poverty level "multiples" to qualify for certain programs. It's just one lie after another.

The main culprit here is the master criminal, Alan Greenspan.

Thanks, Squidd, for your explanation of the "multiplier effect." I guess the multiplier effect goes under 1.00 if the government is buying "toxic assets." What they buy isn't worth what they are paying. And that, I suppose, is why bailing out the banks isn't as good as getting money to people directly. That money--what goes to people--gets recycled. Thanks for the lesson.

Caught me up for a while, too, until I realized this was a U.K. piece. I mean, you could call it "frantic" in the sense that they seem to have absolutely no idea what they're doing. There's been story after story of the Obama Administration efforts being a failure.

You must be freinds with Leland...

" The massive offshoring of jobs has created a new labor market structure many of millions of jobs smaller than just 8 years ago, and tens of millions less than 1982."

...with millions *MORE* people that have been added to the labor market that new jobs need to be created for even if there were no net job losses to begin with.