The Tale of Two Economies

It is interesting to read/watch mainstream news these days. It seems there is some strange myopic syndrome wherein those who run mainstream news outlets are unable to see the economic situation outside their own luxury. When it hurts the middle class to gas up or, now, by weekly groceries, the story is pretty big. The housing market has been in meltdown and banking, now, is suffering similar fate. Yet the stories we get are more often than not concentrated on the suffering in the financial markets.

This isn't anything new. A couple of articles online, however, hint at the scope of the damage and the seriousness of this:

• Marketwatch has a commentary on how, with all the bailouts, America is becoming a 'socialist' state. The argument here is that the free market abuses have, ironically, brought about the conservatives' nightmare - social programs. The problem I find with this article is that it fails to mention that those really benefiting from the social programs are the banks and the lenders who are the very people who got us into the mess in the first place. This is all done at the taxpayer expense, right? Is the problem really being solved?

• I love this rant about the notion that shareholders must see a profit. Writer Daniel Davies yanks back the curtain on a crappy system that doesn't work and has serious ramifications for workers.

• Finally, Dan Schechter lays it all out and tells us that instead of praise for rescue of capitalism we should be rethinking and rebuilding a post-capital society.