Here's a portion of how Webster's actually defines the word, "recovery"..."recover (ri-kuv'-er) v.t. to put a fresh cover on...-y n. regaining, retaking, or obtaining possession."
Today, America is experiencing a "recovery." See above for part the literal definition of the word. See below for what this reality means in political terms.
In the U.S. we're now witnessing...
1.) a Federal Reserve Chair that has totally walked away from his responsibility to control unemployment, (see Krugman's latest on this, farther down, below) while simultaneously supervising and enabling the greatest ripoff (in financial terms) of a society's underclasses in world history. Meanwhile, weekly unemployment claims have been spiking again;
2.) long-term joblessness unlike anything witnessed in this country; it's an "unprecedented rise," according to our own Bureau of Labor Statistics, via USA Today on Thursday;
3.) increasing inflation in specific areas (gasoline and food) where it's doing the most harm to those on Main Street living paycheck-to-paycheck; here's what Mike Duke, WalMart's CEO said on Wednesday, via CNN Money....
Wal-Mart’s core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.
“We’re seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure,” Duke said at an event in New York. “There’s no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact.”
Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.
Lately, they’re “running out of money” at a faster clip, he said.
“Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year,” Duke said. “This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.
4.) the worst, ongoing housing recession/depression in U.S. history (which has almost always been the driver of economic recoveries from economic downturns up until this one), as we learn that--after our government has pumped many hundreds of billions of dollars into the housing/mortgage sector over the past couple of years--home prices are once again eclipsing post-bubble lows, with Calculated Risk's Bill McBride and the folks over at the Case-Shiller Index telling us we still have quite a bit more (10%+) lower to go.
5.) the greatest income disparity between our social classes since the metric was first implemented in any reliable fashion (back in the early 1900's); meanwhile wages are plummeting for those still holding onto their jobs;
But, hey, the stock market is up and the "ABCD Irrelevant Index" is showing "modest growth" this week; so those are "very promising signs" (at least if you're among the top 10% of our society that controls somewhere between 90% and 98.5% of all market investment vehicles in this country).
I strongly urge you to read blogger George Washington's latest, currently running at the top of Naked Capitalism as I write this: "Guest Post: Gallup Poll Shows that More Americans Believe the U.S. is in a Depression than is Growing … Are They Right?" It's loaded with annotative links.
So, how do you "put a fresh face" on all of this reality? (Not to be confused with "gloom and doom.")
Well, if you're a politician in Washington, D.C. you spin the sh*t out of it, and you hope nobody pays any attention.
Paul Krugman discusses the first item on the list, above, in his column in this Friday's NY Times...
The Intimidated Fed
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
April 29, 2011
Last month more than 14 million Americans were unemployed by the official definition — that is, seeking work but unable to find it. Millions more were stuck in part-time work because they couldn’t find full-time jobs. And we’re not talking about temporary hardship. Long-term unemployment, once rare in this country, has become all too normal: More than four million Americans have been out of work for a year or more.
Given this dismal picture, you might have expected unemployment, and what to do about it, to have been a major focus of Wednesday’s press conference with Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. And it should have been. But it wasn’t.
After the conference, Reuters put together a “word cloud” of Mr. Bernanke’s remarks, a visual representation of the frequency with which he used various words. The cloud is dominated by the word “inflation.” “Unemployment,” in much smaller type, is tucked in the background.
This misplaced emphasis wasn’t entirely Mr. Bernanke’s fault, since he was responding to questions — and those questions focused much more on inflation than on unemployment. But that focus was, in itself, a symptom of the extent to which Washington has lost interest in the plight of the unemployed. And the Bernanke Fed, which should be taking a firm stand against these skewed priorities, is instead letting itself be bullied into following the herd...
On Wednesday (h/t Kossack
David Mizner, who also published
THIS excellent diary, earlier on Thursday),
Krugman had this to say about Bernanke...
The official unemployment rate has fallen. But this is the result less of job creation than of a fall in the labor force participation rate; the employment-population ratio has been flat...Whatever your take, a robust job recovery this is not. All in all, this is an economy crying out for more stimulus, wherever you can get it...
And, last but not least, here's Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges' latest (he's always worth the read, IMHO), in case you're interested in the 32,000-foot view, "The Corporate State Wins Again."
The Corporate State Wins Again
By Chris Hedges
Truthdig.com
April 25, 2011
When did our democracy die? When did it irrevocably transform itself into a lifeless farce and absurd political theater? When did the press, labor, universities and the Democratic Party—which once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible—wither and atrophy? When did reform through electoral politics become a form of magical thinking? When did the dead hand of the corporate state become unassailable?
...
...We continue to talk about personalities—Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama—although the heads of state or elected officials in Congress have become largely irrelevant. Lobbyists write the bills. Lobbyists get them passed. Lobbyists make sure you get the money to be elected. And lobbyists employ you when you get out of office. Those who hold actual power are the tiny elite who manage the corporations. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, in their book “Winner-Take-All Politics,” point out that the share of national income of the top 0.1 percent of Americans since 1974 has grown from 2.7 to 12.3 percent. One in six American workers may be without a job. Some 40 million Americans may live in poverty, with tens of millions more living in a category called “near poverty.” Six million people may be forced from their homes because of foreclosures and bank repossessions. But while the masses suffer, Goldman Sachs, one of the financial firms most responsible for the evaporation of $17 trillion in wages, savings and wealth of small investors and shareholders, is giddily handing out $17.5 billion in compensation to its managers, including $12.6 million to its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein.
The massive redistribution of wealth, as Hacker and Pierson write, happened because lawmakers and public officials were, in essence, hired to permit it to happen. It was not a conspiracy. The process was transparent. It did not require the formation of a new political party or movement. It was the result of inertia by our political and intellectual class, which in the face of expanding corporate power found it personally profitable to facilitate it or look the other way. The armies of lobbyists, who write the legislation, bankroll political campaigns and disseminate propaganda, have been able to short-circuit the electorate...
Yes...let's not talk about the bad news that accounts for virtually all of the IMPORTANT news about our economy, these days. Some think that if we don't talk about it, maybe it'll go away come November 2012, just like the strategy deployed by Democrats which led up to election night, last November...oh, snap!
Hmmm...maybe Democrats should rethink how they're spinning our economic recovery these days? Ya' think?