Henry Blodget gets it. It's the ratio of capital share to labor share, stupid.
Why is growth so slow and weak?
One reason is that average American consumers, who account for the vast majority of the spending in the economy, are still strapped.
The reason average American consumers are still strapped, meanwhile, is that America's companies and company owners — the small group of Americans who own and control America's corporations — are hogging a record percentage of the country's wealth for themselves.
"Hogging" is much more metaphorical than "hoarding."
Jobs added outside NY, Ca, and the oil states since 2008 are negative. So unless you live or moved to those states, you are pretty much screwed and living in a depression economy. We point the fingers at the EU for not having common stabilizers but ours aren't working very well. And without pork-barrel spending congress isn't promoting local and regional industries in the way they used to either.
ReplyDeleteTo make matters worse, farm commodity prices turning down, will hit the middle even harder. Lots of jobs dependent on supplying farms with implements, transportation, storage, trading and other stuff. While Kroger, Safeway and General Mills won't raise their minimum wage workers when they have the benefit of cheaper milk, wheat, corn...