{"id":63,"date":"2011-06-03T17:51:39","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T17:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=63"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:05:02","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:05:02","slug":"our-stinking-economy-a-view-from-the-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/our-stinking-economy-a-view-from-the-bottom\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Stinking Economy: A View from the Bottom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It\u2019s pretty much unanimous: the economy will continue sucking for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

In Slate, Annie Lowery reports<\/strong><\/a> that housing prices are at a new low, private-sector job growth is falling, along with industrial production, consumer confidence and Wall Street. The good news? Any fool could have seen this coming a mile away:<\/p>\n

\nThere is, finally, one bit of cold comfort: At the very least, the news is not really news. Most analyses of the kind of recession we are having\u2014the kind that follows a massive financial crisis and an asset-price bubble that led to too much leverage throughout the economy\u2014indicate that things should be pretty bad right now. They\u2019re correct. The IMF, for instance, warned as far back as 2009 that the \u201ccombination of financial crisis and a globally synchronized downturn is likely to result in an unusually severe and long-lasting recession.\u201d Economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, who have studied 800 years of recessions and panics, concur. \u201cI would say we\u2019re right on track,\u201d Reinhart says. \u201cYes, the recovery looks long, but that\u2019s because we haven\u2019t had a financial crisis this severe since World War II.\u201d <\/p>\n

That is not to say that there is nothing to be done, of course, or that the current state of affairs is inevitable. More stimulus or more aggressive monetary policy could help the economy, boosting employment and keeping the self-sustaining recovery going. But such measures are unlikely, given Congress\u2019 concern with the debt ceiling and cutting spending. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She doesn\u2019t come right out and say, \u201cWhat? You got your hopes<\/i> up? Schmucks.\u201d Jolly sporting of her, wasn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n

When I read stories like this \u2014 if \u201creading\u201d isn\u2019t too active a word; they\u2019re so ubiquitous, all I really have to take them in by osmosis \u2014 I feel a guilt-inducing sense of detachment. You see, I never really made it into the middle class to begin with. As a loan officer at a very sleazy mortgage brokerage, I had about three good months in a row, after which my pipeline fell apart. This happened just after I\u2019d broken my favorite front tooth by biting into an extra-thick Twizzler I\u2019d left floating in a very icy Thirstbuster cup. (Yes, even at 30, I was using Twizzlers as straws.) Not only did the disappearance of my income mean I had to return my Explorer to the friend whose payments I\u2019d assumed, it forced me to walk around for several months with a big hole in my smile. <\/p>\n

People took me for a tweaker, which was flattering because, at that point, tweakers stood a few rungs above me on the ol\u2019 social ladder. <\/p>\n

Anyway, after that, I realized I wasn\u2019t cut out to be a businessman, so I took a series of no-brainer office jobs. You know the type of job I mean \u2014 the kind where the tattoos outnumber the people five to one, and where everyone\u2019s marriage works because everyone\u2019s husband is under house arrest. Anyone who had enough cash and credit to buy a real, live house or send their kid to a real, live college looked to me like a belted earl. Even now that I\u2019m leading la vie bohemienne<\/i> as a freelancer, economic tankings look to me like gout or porphyria or the Hapsburg jaw \u2014 afflictions for the beautiful people.<\/p>\n

I know that\u2019s balderdash, but I convince myself of it, anyway. Whiile the rest of the world screams, I sit smugly in a tranquil state of \u201cblah.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s pretty much unanimous: the economy will continue sucking for the foreseeable future. In Slate, Annie Lowery reports that housing prices are at a new low, private-sector job growth is falling, along with industrial production, consumer confidence and Wall Street. The good news? Any fool could have seen this coming a mile away: There is, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[74,195,202],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-economy","tag-poverty","tag-recession"],"yoast_head":"\nOur Stinking Economy: A View from the Bottom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's pretty much unanimous: the economy will continue sucking for the foreseeable future. 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