I was watching CNBC this morning, and viewed a report from Steve Liesman that shocked me at first. Then I realized that, having lived and worked through this decade, this report should come as no surprise. Mr. Liesman's report was in regards to the job stagnation and loss over the last ten years. Here is a link to the video report.
This is not breaking news as several papers have reported on this phenomenon in the last few months. Here is one from Business Week, here is one from Market Watch, and finally here is one from Slate.
I'm sure politicians will attempt their own spin on all these reports of the "Lost Decade" for jobs production in the US. However, what can't be spun is the fact that while our population grew, the number of us working fell over an extended period of time. To be sure policy changes had a large impact on this very disturbing fact. Regulations affect every aspect of our lives, including the ability to provide for our families and ourselves. The lesson I've learned from all of this is that a "hands off, the economy will take care of it itself" approach, is both foolhardy monetary policy as well as potentially dangerous national security policy. We only need to look at the unemployment numbers, the last ten years performance of the stock market, and finally the price of commodities, to see how I've arrived at this assessment.
So what can we do about this? We could do nothing and hope things improve. I think the answer however, is to get involved politically. We need to share our opinions with our elected representatives and let them know that these past types of poorly thought out deregulatory policies will not stand.
