Happy Anniversary, Recession!

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the low point of the stock market for our current economic debacle. While stock values have recovered significantly since then, pretty much everything else remains stagnant. Now, some people will try to point out that housing sales are up slightly, but they are being propped up by the $8000 tax incentive and ridiculously low prices. Ask anybody who is actually trying to sell their home right now. It ain't easy and it's not like houses are flying off the market. Sellers have to really work and invest some serious time in getting the place sold, sometimes for considerably less than the asking price. Plus, the job market has yet to show any real signs of recovery. There again, it takes months of full time work to land a job, and you are damn lucky if you aren't taking a serious cut in pay and/or benefits. True, landing a job and selling a house were never easy, but these tasks have become downright scary recently.

All of this means that once again, it is only the rich that are really recovering. Regular people, the ones who are truly struggling, are failing to make up any ground. I guess that some good news is that people's retirement funds are recovering a little bit, but am I the only one who remembers that there was a time when your retirement money wasn't tied to market swings, but was based more on sticking loyally by your company's side and being rewarded with a pension? And people wonder why things like customer service and just a general sense of common courtesy have all but vanished from American providers of goods and services. Where is the incentive for employees to invest anything more that the minimum effort into their job? All employees are seeing these days is the cost of their insurance increasing and their coverage slashed. I'm just saying that it isn't enough that now your 401K isn't hemorrhaging money.

So what is the answer? I don't know, but it sure as fuck isn't the laughable trickle down theory that has long been a given in American economics. Why do we continue to rely on assholes who don't give a shit about anyone else? Even though investments may have recovered values, do we see any of that being reinvested in businesses? Hell no. The wealthy are just continuing to pad their pockets to that they can continue their perceived right to live in luxury. Goddamn. I have absolutely no qualifications in finance or economics and even I can see this system isn't working.