Thanks to Wikicommons.
There are many folks out there asking the big question… (editor: when does the pizza arrive?)
No… the question about the sluggish US economy : When will the country get back to normal?
Well the good news is the US economy has been recovering over the last year… but that recovery may slow in the near future.
Economic indicators seem to show that we’re not fully out of the woods. In an Editorial the San Francisco Chronicle points out that more than just the unemployment rate has shown problems:
Home sales and new construction both declined precipitously in May. The service sector contracted. Manufacturing declined by 3.5 points in June. On Wall Street, Treasury notes keep rising, which suggests that investors are preparing themselves for a period of slow growth.
Feeling this vibe the White House does not want to declare “Mission Accomplished” just yet.
They have called for more economic stimulating actions to be taken by Congress. However, they admit that there isn’t much support for it.
Don’t expect a big fight to get to grow that support. Steve Benen, for the Washington Monthly, comments that:
President Obama really hates — and actively avoids — picking fights he fully expects to lose. Based on his public comments and proposals, I’d say the president really does endorse his economists’ approach and wants additional stimulus, but doesn’t want to go the mat to fight for spending he’s not going to get.
Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times, sees this as a problem:
From a strictly economic point of view, we could still fix this: a second big stimulus, plus much more aggressive Fed policy. But politically, we’re stuck: even if the Democrats hold the House in November, they won’t have the votes to do anything major.
Others are agreeing with Krugman that governments reining in funding could have problems.
In a rush to keep debt in control governments may risk hurting economic recovery. That’s at least what Tyler Durden, of Zero Hedge, says explaining expert Jan Hatzius views:
the push for de-leveraging in the private sector, the rush to ramp up exports, and the imminent Age of Austerity all signal an upcoming unprecedented “demand shortfall for the economy as a whole”
So maybe the Government needs to shovel more money into the economic furnace. Or maybe they don’t (our debt does have a fair amount of heft). We really don’t have an answer so why don’t you chime in.
Unemployment payments are not being extended and economists feel that there needs to be additional stimulus; why not provide for both. Use stimulus to provide for projects and pay for the unemployed. This was done in the 1930’s, remember WPA and CCC. Not only do our parks need upgrades, schools, health clinics and other public institutions could use some repairs, painting and other maintenance.
In addition to the items of the WPA, this country could use the currently available work force for new, out of the box projects, like preparing the plains states for wind power generation. Before turbines can be erected, roads, water and sewer need to be installed. If that is too much, many of the watermains and sanitary sewer lines all across the country are leaking. Why not dig them up and repair or replace them? Many with hand shovels can be just as effective a one with a machine. Design, logistics, cooking, day care, etc, positions would be available for those who cannot do manual labor.
Now the big question as to how to pay for all of this, take the money from the pork barrel projects that have been added to the military spending bills, the stimulus bills and anything that passes through Congress and use that money.
It does not take very much creativity to come up with real stimulus that will have long term positive impacts on the country.