Chart of the Week: The Broken Economy

The Obamanator will have to do some fast talking and fancy walking on the campaign trail because 'Kid Economy' {17.06.11} is doing some damage to his midsection. Obamanator answers the re-election bell this week, and the charts below tell the score. Housing prices are down, reflecting not only a faltering economy, but the drag on the market of thousands of underwater debtors trying to unload their major lifetime investment. The increase in middle class wealth provided by the real estate boom of the oughts has exploded. Increasing home equity masked the real structural inequalities of the American economy. Only the rich are still getting rich in the current economy and only the rich are still spending; for a GDP that is 70% consumer spending that is bad news. The Dow Jones casino hit a four year high on May Day. Nine cities and both composite Schiller-Price indexes hit nine-year lows last month:

The recent increase in jobs during the mild winter months, hailed by the CMM as a sign of economic recovery, was an artifact of climate change induced optimism more than an increase in economic activity. Most of the April gains were in low-wage sectors like retail and restaurants where jobs are often temporary. Lost family income jobs are not being replaced as companies have learned to cut costs with less labor:

For the first time since the Great Depression, there has been no job growth for a decade.  That statistical fact makes this recession different from all others:

Productivity gains are going to the owners of capital, not workers. Stimulus spending is a dirty word in Washington, a city suffering from the latest inducement of budget austerity delusion. The sycophants of the plutocracy would rather let you eat cake than, for example, pass a financial transactions tax or end Repugnant tax cuts for the rich which could pay for a greener economic rebuilding. When the major spending cuts take effect in 2013, America's stalling economy will fall off the cliff, says Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary. Someone should explain the concept of marginal utility of money to politicians, if you can get their attention away from the cameras.