The economy is back. It’s rolling, baby. I know this because the experts on Wall Street and in Washington have all detected signals that a recovery is now well and truly underway. The stock market, a harbinger of economic news so infallible that it’s one of the 10 leading indicators used by the Fed to determine the direction of the economy, is also at record levels after that unfortunate downward turn it took in 2008.
So with all this glorious economic news I was wondering. How’s this recovery working for ya?
Got a lot of jobs offers to chose from? If you are still employed, is the pay better, the benefits more generous? That home of yours, is it worth more because real estate prices are rising? That non-existent inflation we’re hearing about, does it mean its costing you less to drive your car or buy your groceries? And if you get your grits at a food bank, as one in seven Americans now does, has the menu options there improved?
Are your local government services better than they used to be? Is your kid’s college costs more affordable because tuition is down? Is the assistance that used to make it more affordable gotten heftier? That new information packet you just got from your health insurer, does it tell of lower monthly premiums, more things fully covered, are the co-pays, your share of the costs, lower?
The reason I’m asking is because I think part of what is termed “the new normal” now also includes a “new recovery” definition. Old recoveries saw most people’s economic lives improved. New recoveries, it seems, are mostly improvements in the lives of the richest, and the ability of the rest of us to merely drag along at a lower level of existence.
But maybe I have it wrong. Maybe improvements in most people’s economic lives are just a lagging indicator. Though one that’s destined to lag along for a very long time while the really important indicators, the ones used by officialdom, are trending upward..
Happy recovery in any case. Perhaps as we see the evil government phased out more and more, a less fettered marketplace will brings us all a Wall Street-led prosperity. You betcha!
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