A wasted decade

By Dave Anderson:

I'm turning 30 this month, and my entire adult life has been during the unravelling of the American dream of this generation doing a bit better than the previous generation, and the next generation (who is currently taking a much needed nap) doing a bit better than my generation.  The decade has been a waste where even the bubble was not productive, just transfers and accumulations.  No more jobs, no wage gains, all productivity gains either a mirage or sucked up by the nation's elite, more debt, less flexibility, and the trimming of dreams and possibilities have been the characteristics of my 20s.

The Washington Post outlines the indictment:

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous
decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent.
Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s
as well.

Middle-income households made less in 2008, when
adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 -- and the number is sure
to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the
first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first
compiled in the 1960s.

And the net worth of American households
-- the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus
debts -- has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with
sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially
collected in the 1950s.

"This was the first business cycle where
a working-age household ended up worse at the end of it than the
beginning, and this in spite of substantial growth in productivity,
which should have been able to improve everyone's well-being," said
Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal
think tank.

A decade treading absolute water and falling behind proportionally means a nastier politics as politics are at best a zero-sum game.  Politics in this environment can often become a negative sum game as people are desperate to protect what they have and are risk averse on any potential for change.  We are seeing that dynamic with health care as the people with dependable health care (the retired) are doing everything they can to prevent potential or perceived losses to their security even if the net benefits to society are real and tangible. 

I often wonder if the Democratic youth wave would have materialized in an alternative universe where Iraq was never invaded and occupied in 2003?  I think the wave of discontent that has developed in my generation was catalyzed by the war in Iraq and the waste of time, resources and lives for a priaptic boost for a shell-shocked populace and deeply craven and immoral pundits and policy makers.  However, I also believe that my generation has known that we have been, are and will continue to get screwed royally as we graduate from college with more debt, lower wages, fewer options, more McJobs of no fulfillment and therefore there is a desperation to try something a bit different as the current order is not working for us. 

The noughts were a wasted time as the vise of circumstances that created Stein's law have not squeezed hard enough.  There is still a future to loot, and the young and the bottom 97% have a bit more blood to give.