The Associate Press reported on Lawrence Summers’, President Obama’s top economic adviser, comments on the recovery saying “the U.S. is experiencing an economic recovery on paper but a “human recession” because of job losses. Summers added the following, again from the AP:
“What is disturbing is the level of unemployment,” he said, with one in five men between the ages of 25 and 54 not working.
“What we’re seeing in the United States, and perhaps in some other places, is a statistical recovery and a human recession,” Summers said.
Who is Summers kidding? Does he get paid those big bucks for stating the obvious? Statistics show a recovery and, of course, he gives credit to Obama’s stimulus package. (After all, he’s still a team player. Asshole.) But unemployment is still at 10 percent. Another has a different opinion.
Business Week reports that New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini calls recent statistics “very dismal and poor.” Simon Kennedy’s brief article follows:
New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who anticipated the financial crisis, called the fourth quarter surge in U.S. economic growth “very dismal and poor†because it relied on temporary factors.
Roubini said more than half of the 5.7 percent expansion reported yesterday by the government was related to a replenishing of inventories and that consumption depended on monetary and fiscal stimulus. As these forces ebb, growth will slow to just 1.5 percent in the second half of 2010, he said.
“The headline number will look large and big, but actually when you dissect it, it’s very dismal and poor,†Roubini told Bloomberg Television in an interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “I think we are in trouble.â€
Roubini said while the world’s largest economy won’t relapse into recession, unemployment will rise from the current 10 percent, posing social and political challenges.
“It’s going to feel like a recession even if technically we’re not going to be in a recession,†he said.
Here’s the original article: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-31/roubini-sees-dismal-growth-as-summers-rues-human-recession-.html
If there is a recovery, and it appears doubtful, somebody’s gaining from it. However, it’s no the 15 million who are unemployed.
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