Out of Bubbles

How did unemployment grow to such devastating levels? The short answer is that, for decades, America’s been moving from economic bubble to bubble, and now, there are no more bubbles to save us. The Reagan-era unemployment, which was as bad as ours, was cured by the mass migration from manufacturing to service-sector jobs, moving from tradesman to hamburger-flippers, from longshoremen to checkout clerks. Later we were rescued from the recession of the early ‘90s by the dot-com boom, which busted just as the last decade’s real estate explosion took hold. The bill for that came due in September 2008, and here we are, in desperate need of magic bullets.

So what’s America’s next angle? How can Obama create the 300,000 jobs per month needed to put us back to work? There is no angle, no quick buck, no scheme to satisfy the big investors’ needs to make tons of money, but at the same time, make tons of jobs. You see, private equity doesn’t care much about jobs. Only we do. And to become secure again, Americans will have to build things, make things, repair and invent things. Are investors keen on that? Not really. Well then, who does have a plan with that in mind? Only Obama. But that’s socialism, isn’t it?

Better to wait around for the investors’ crumbs. At least they’ll be good, honest, capitalist crumbs.