So the stock market is up. The big banks are turning in good earnings reports. The television commentators say we’re coming out of the recession.
You hear this news and then you reach into your own pocket – and the pocket is empty.
Your kids getting out of college are looking for jobs, but no jobs are being created.
In fact, for the younger generation heading into college or half way through – the college loans are stacking up and it is likely there will be no jobs when they get out.
And let’s say you have children who won’t go to college, who would have entered the marketplace two years ago, who could have found a job two years ago – well – there are precious few jobs to be found and many hundreds seeking them out.
If you have been laid off and you are 50 or older, you know you’re not going to find a job.
You are laid –off or your company has just closed, there is only the unemployment line and raging worry and escalating fear about the future.
So the stock market is up. The Dow Jones Industrial average is over 10,000. The recession is coming to an end.
We should all be cheering for the great earnings by the banks on Wall Street but we’re not cheering.
And there’s the disconnect.
Wall Street is a place of its own. Its successes are far removed from the problems residents in Chelsea and ten thousand other cities across the land are facing.
The Dow Jones going over 10,000 doesn’t signal anything to millions of American homeowners who owe more on their homes than they are worth.
It is but a headline to those facing foreclosure and this city is filled with foreclosures and people who need jobs.
I’m happy the economy didn’t completely collapse this time last year. It almost collapsed. It wiped out trillions of dollars of assets, killed the real estate market, destroyed and closed companies and turned us into a profit driven economy unable to create jobs – in fact – creating bigger profits by laying off more and more workers.
Where does all this end? When will jobs be created, again? When will the economy sing, again?
The automobile industry in this nation is finished. Credit card companies will have no growth as the future unfolds. People don’t have the money to shop as they did before everything changed last year. They wouldn’t shop if they had the money.
The main difficulty is that jobs are not being created and more and more people need jobs.
Businesses are still closing. Most businesses can’t be sold. Banks still won’t lend money (although they are very good at losing billions) and now … it’s almost Christmas.