For the Poor and Middle Class The Recession is Permanent

I have realized for years that there was something terribly wrong with our current economy. This article by Barbara Ehrenreich the author of Nickeled and Dimmed is one of the few that I have seen that really seems to tell it like it is. It is so disappointing to read the comments. People don't seem to realize that when people work for less than what cost the live a stable life the market is not working. The employer benefits in the short term, but the economy in general suffers greatly as the employee's productivity falls and crime and disease rise.

I am not saying that there is a simplistic answer. As far as I can tell the vast differential between the cost of living in the United States and the cost of living in China and India but American workers at almost an impossible disadvantage. I can't see any other outcome but a decrease in the American standard of living. If this decrease is managed with support given to the losers in this new society we may be able to make it. But if it is just an uncontrolled collapse of standard of living that works its way up high into the middle classes the result quite possibly will be the kind of political instability that is just too dangerous for a nuclear power.