All I know is large corporate employers have been not only laying off but having salary freezes for the last few years. I've asked around and this is true for almost anyone lucky enough to have employement but unlucky enough to be a wage slave.
Yet prices for goods and services have climbed horrifically in the past few years. Take a look at http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/displaystory.cfm... - The Economist commodity price index - 30% inflation in one year! Are you getting 30% more salary than you got last year?
I was lucky enough to go long on various commodities when a lot of this started. Didn't have much to spare but dumped everything I could in a metals basket. Cashed out, paid off various things, started a business, got back in the market, and as of now it's far more than half again the value I put in.
So this story is about how things are supposedly turning around, and if we look at the change from last month, hey, maybe they are. But as others in the thread have pointed out far more eloquently, the piper has yet to be paid. This whole situation is and has been a cascading systems failure and the Federal Reserve and the US government are forced to become beholden to more and more entities - first the airlines, banks, mortgage brokers, auto manufacturers, on and on, and always Wall Street holding a gun to Bernanke's head because they know he'll cave - after all he did the first time! and the second! and so on; with the citizens and shareholders (anyone with a salary, fixed welfare/pension, or savings) bearing the brunt and with no say.
http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/ - "Economic and financial indicators, Feb 11th 2010": Ben Bernanke, the Fed’s chairman, said that he expected to consider raising the discount rate “before too long”, but that the Fed’s benchmark interest rate was likely to remain unchanged.
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All I know is large corporate employers have been not only laying off but having salary freezes for the last few years. I've asked around and this is true for almost anyone lucky enough to have employement but unlucky enough to be a wage slave.
Yet prices for goods and services have climbed horrifically in the past few years. Take a look at http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/displaystory.cfm... - The Economist commodity price index - 30% inflation in one year! Are you getting 30% more salary than you got last year?
I was lucky enough to go long on various commodities when a lot of this started. Didn't have much to spare but dumped everything I could in a metals basket. Cashed out, paid off various things, started a business, got back in the market, and as of now it's far more than half again the value I put in.
So this story is about how things are supposedly turning around, and if we look at the change from last month, hey, maybe they are. But as others in the thread have pointed out far more eloquently, the piper has yet to be paid. This whole situation is and has been a cascading systems failure and the Federal Reserve and the US government are forced to become beholden to more and more entities - first the airlines, banks, mortgage brokers, auto manufacturers, on and on, and always Wall Street holding a gun to Bernanke's head because they know he'll cave - after all he did the first time! and the second! and so on; with the citizens and shareholders (anyone with a salary, fixed welfare/pension, or savings) bearing the brunt and with no say.
http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/ - "Economic and financial indicators, Feb 11th 2010": Ben Bernanke, the Fed’s chairman, said that he expected to consider raising the discount rate “before too long”, but that the Fed’s benchmark interest rate was likely to remain unchanged.