Apologies for the formatting of this post. Blogger.com sometimes does this for no reason.
Before I delve into a presentation by Nobel Laureate and world renown economist, Joseph Stiglitz, I want to cite his recent article "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" as well as another article, entitled "Suffer the Young" by and up and coming professor and economist Max Fraad Wolf. Both of these articles share the same theme: America is losing job opportunities and the ones who are hurting the most are the middle class and America's youth, both of which the US needs to to break out of its recession. They are not necessarily apocalyptic articles; however they are neither uplifting nor optimistic about the US economy or the majority of people hoping to find a job in it. This is very disheartening for all of us, especially recent graduates and the unemployed. What needs to be done is the creation of jobs by the US government. The government needs to stimulate job growth - most likely through more spending and raising taxes to justify the spending - and loaning money to small and medium businesses, which are major employers for the middle class. However the recent budget debates in Congress (if you have not heard about this, just google) appear to be heading the opposite way, i.e. cutting public funding in education and innovation, and lowering taxes for the uber rich, basically making it harder for the middle class to survive. In his article, Stiglitz ponders whether the US will rise against the government and its ultra rich, much like the Arab and African world has.
