期刊名称：Cultural Logic : an Electronic Journal of Marxist Theory and Practice
电子版ISSN：1097-3087
出版年度：2010
出版社：Department of English and Foreign Languages
摘要：A little more than two years ago we were told that the so-called Great Recession, which began in December 2007, had finally ended and a recovery though “jobless” was underway. What a cruel hoax to millions of Americans expected to endure massive unemployment and steadily declining living standards while watching financial institutions and corporations being rescued by government largesse – all at their expense. As we go to publication, the dry statistics tell a woeful tale of increasing instability, uncertainty and deprivation. In July, the government reported a net increase of 117,000 jobs, which lowered the June unemployment rate of 9.2 by a mere one-tenth of a percentage point. Actually, private companies had added a total of 154,000 new jobs, but the gain was offset by the continued bleeding of state and local governments, which shed 39,000 jobs. At the moment some 13.9 million people are out of work, 6.2 million for six months or longer. Add to that 8.4 million who work part time and another 1.1 million who have stopped looking and what you get is surely a troubling statistic: 58.1 percent of the population is employed, the lowest level in nearly three decades.1 Is it even worth pondering what it would take under current circumstances to create 250,000 to 300,000 new jobs every month for at least two years in order for any real recovery to occur? Earlier this year, we were reassured by economists and political leaders that signs of improvement were unmistakable and that we would be back to pre-recession conditions by summer. GDP had grown at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, mainly on the basis of increased consumer spending (4.4 percent), swelled investment portfolios, a shrinking trade deficit, and greater spending by businesses on equipment and software – all serving to pump up Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner’s “growing confidence” that the economy was coming back to life.2
