Ah, Friday. In better days, most thought the acronym, “TGIF.” I don’t know if most think that way anymore. The Government told us this morning that our growth as a nation in the fourth quarter was the fastest or strongest since 2003.
Well, that may be a bit hard to swallow for those 17 million who are out of work or the 30+ million attending Emergency Rooms for primary healthcare.
Of course, it’s not that tough for a financial community that’s tossing about dollars in salaries and bonuses as if it’s printing them themselves; maybe it is. Our President’s relatively mild “jawboning” hasn’t forced any manifest increase in lending to small business by banks.
My wife, almost the definitive bargain hunter, regularly attends “dollar” stores and has noted to me that the traffic there has increased noticeably. Personally, I love those stores.
I attend the market and have noticed, perhaps not frequently, that sale items are sold out and that other shoppers are becoming far more discerning of price, several actually looking at the very fine print on the price tags to see which products cost less per ounce or whatever quantity.
While some wags may say the recession is over as a result of the academic end to such economic times, i.e. two consecutive quarters of growth; most of us don’t see it that way.
At least, those with whom I talk don’t, even though they have jobs, homes and so forth.
I believe it is the income disparity that gets to most of us: According to a Berkeley Profession, as of 2007, the top ten percent of American earners, pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that’s higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the ‘roaring’ 1920s.
While the President referred to that disparity in his State of the Union message, I wonder if our nation is not becoming “Brazil,” i.e. a nation of only rich and poor, with little discernable Middle Class.
