The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

The Big Zero

Do you have the feeling you're no better off today than you were ten years ago? That's because, probably, you aren't:

It was a decade with basically zero job creation. ... And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.

It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.

It was a decade of zero gains for homeowners, even if they bought early: right now housing prices, adjusted for inflation, are roughly back to where they were at the beginning of the decade.

... What was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.

Happy new year!

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