The economy grew 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009, did you know? If that number holds, and there’s reason to think it will, the recession may be technically over. It may be a long time before we recover the jobs we’ve lost over the last two years, circumstances may have created a ‘lost’ generation of young workers – all the caveats we’ve been hearing to smother any optimism are still there.
If we’ve reached the end, we should be appalled at how little the people who dragged the United States in the mire have learned. Many of these Svengalis are back to trading complex derivatives, as the government hasn’t stepped up to apply regulatory apparatuses in any meaningful way. As result of Wall Street action and Washington inaction, most of these motherfuckers expect to receive a bonus this year, and a third of them expect bigger bonuses than they had in 2008.
The moment for anyone in a position of power to effect change on our system of unregulated crony capitalism has passed, if ever the moment existed in the first place. It certainly seemed like there was a chance in those heady early months of 2009, before it was clear exactly how beholden the White House and Congress were to the monied interests who really run the country. Obama brought Change, all right; several cents change in return for every dollar we lost. The best we can Hope for is a spot near the front of the soup line.
