Jim Devine wrote: > The Great Recession is just the beginning > > By Matt Miller [the self-described "center" of U.S. public radio's > "Left, Right & Center," which also involves a right-winger (Tony > Blankley of the Moonie Press) and two left-wingers (Arianna > Huffington, who used to be on the right, and Bob Scheer).] > > Wednesday, July 21, 2010; [Washington POST] > > Here's a cheery midsummer thought. You know those 15 million > unemployed, and that sluggish growth, and the debt hangover and > de-leveraging, and those soaring deficits? Well, these woes aren't our > biggest economic problems. > > The real test for the U.S. economy starts once we get past the fallout > from the burst housing and banking bubbles that triggered the Great > Recession. And when it comes to that challenge -- which involves > preserving U.S. living standards in a world of global competition -- > we either (1) don't know what to do, or (2) we do know but seem to > have little intention of doing it. > > A brief trot through history places this moment in context. After > World War II, when the United States was the only economy left > standing, we began an unprecedented economic run. "You had a 60-year > period where every new industry of huge value-added or breakthrough > innovation or high risk -- whether it was pharma, biotech, software, > personal computing or semiconductors -- were all totally U.S.-based," > Bill Gates said in 2007. >
This reminded me of something. In the Anthony Bourdain show on Cleveland that was re-aired in commemoration of Harvey Pekar's passing, Harvey tells Bourdain that Cleveland had twice the population in 1950 that it has today. The show included some information about the decline of the steel industry. I wonder if anybody has written an economic history of the USA since the end of WWII that would include a detailed analysis of what happened in the "rust belt" and where new areas of growth have occurred. It's the kind of book that Mike Davis would be able to a good job on, methinks. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
