Treasury Secretary Geithner — ‘Spinning’ Out of Control
Leo Hindery | Huffington Post
August 17, 2010
Mr. Geithner gilds the economy’s lily in inappropriate attempts to delude American workers into believing that: business investment is in fine shape when in fact businesses are sitting on an unprecedented $2 trillion of cash precisely because of ‘uncertainty’ the “surge in imports” is “healthy” when in fact it is an ongoing nightmare (i.e., just in June the overall U.S. trade deficit in goods and services surged 19% to a 21-month high of $49.9 billion); income inequality is not so unequal when in fact it is at its highest level since 1928; the “auto industry is coming back” when in fact most of its vigor is coming from cutting domestic employment in favor of offshoring; and “8.5 million” jobs have been saved by the White House when just a few weeks ago Geithner himself used the figure of “3 million” for jobs created and saved.
These several assertions of Geithner's aren't just disingenuous and disrespectful — they’re also dangerous, especially his implicit suggestion that consumers should once again feel comfortable ‘borrowing and spending’. If they become commonly embraced by the American people before there are significant economic reforms and successful major job creation initiatives, then that double-dip recession that many of us fear may be coming will arrive in a very big way and it could turn into the second longest L-shaped recession in our country’s history.
Here are some additional truths about our economy, over and above the sad income inequality truths that now hang over our nation like a plague:
Read more @ Huffington Post.
