(2010-08-08) Depression Or Shell Game

It seems to me like we're in a period of Economic Transition (to a Network Economy) associated with Credit Crisis 2008.

But Bob Herbert suggests that current on-the-streets woes are not inevitable, but a direct Side Effect of BigCo profit-taking. *The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.... “They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Andrew Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see CorporateProfits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”