Playing With Economic Dynamite

Jim Hightower on the problems the US economy is facing:

In fact, profits are up, the stock market is roaring, corporations are awash in cash, CEOs are reaping fabulous paychecks again, and - did you hear? - holiday spending reached its highest level in four years.

Forget last year's talk of gloom, all economic indicators are now on zoom, headed for a new boom!

Well, maybe not all indicators. There is still that pesky little problem of joblessness, for instance. Most politicos and economists, however, no longer want to be bothered with the fact that millions of our people are either unemployed or underemployed. Jobs, they say dismissively, are merely a "lagging economic indicator," a problem that'll take care of itself in the by and by. Just be patient. And be quiet.

But jobs have been "lagging" for years now, and there's no sign that this problem will ever take care of itself. To the contrary, America's corporate elite have learned that they can prosper by deliberately holding the workaday majority in a new normal of job insecurity.

Read the whole article here.