FROM THE UK: The big crash – America plunges into Depression

from RMN

                                            Posted By: watcher51445 <Send E-Mail>
                                            Date: Friday, 16-Jul-2010 05:50:51

Gee whizz! Dang it! It would be nice if our AMERICAN NEWS MEDIAS would tell us what THE BRITS are so eager to let us know! [vkd] ------------------------------------------------------------ The big crash – America plunges into Depression Alexander Cockburn: Young Americans have given up watching the news. It’s too depressing By Alexander Cockburn LAST UPDATED 3:31 PM, JULY 8, 2010 ShareIt's the worst of times. America is plunging back into Depression. Only one out of every two Americans of working age has a job. Forty years ago that would have been okay. Dad went to the factory. Mom stayed at home to mind the kids. These days, just to keep the show on the road, mom and pop both work and the kids go to daycare. Start looking for work now and on average it will take till next April for you to find something. Across the last two months, more than a million Americans simply gave up seeking employment, even as benefits are running out. Ironically, if you quit looking for work you count as officially "discouraged", and don't figure in the official unemployment stats, which is the only reason that number hasn't shot up to record highs. Somewhere near 10 million Americans without work aren't getting any kind of cheque. One in every five children is living below the poverty line, sometimes by as much as 50 per cent – classed as "extreme poverty". Across America, in state after state the till is empty. Barack Obama's home state of Illinois is effectively bankrupt. So is California. Forty-six of the 50 states are buried under huge deficits. The stimulus has failed. The housing market is in free fall. A couple of months ago market analysts predicted there will be five million more foreclosures between now and 2011 and it looks like they're on target. Forty per cent of delinquent homeowners have already loaded up the SUV, thrown the plastic chairs in the swimming pool and tossed the house keys back at the bank. Worse still, only 30 per cent of foreclosures have been re-listed for sale. The banks have been keeping them back to avoid flooding the market. For tens of millions of Americans the house is as central and crucial a financial asset as a pig was for an Irish peasant family in the 19th century. The pig, as the old Irish saying went, was "the man beside the fire". It had the place of honour. The pig died, the family starved. Knock 20 per cent off the aggregate value of housing in America today and that means sunset years of penny pinching and, of course, yet one more knife in the belly for the overall economy. And yet... if not the best of times, you can hardly say that America is broke. It's not. As the economic columnist Carl Ginsburg remarks, "America is awash in cash. This is a very, very rich country with piles and piles of cash. Private US accounts today contain approximately $10 trillion in cash and liquid assets. Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/65578,news-comment,news-politics,a-new-drone-base-reason-to-celebrate-in-jobless-us-depression-america?source=patrick.net#ixzz0tpyo6EIS Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/65578,news-comment,news-politics,a-new-drone-base-reason-to-celebrate-in-jobless-us-depression-america?source=patrick.net#ixzz0tpyJe3rh