(NNPA)—I had an interesting, though brief, discussion with a rich friend about President Obama. He is quite conservative, politically. He made the point that this has been the longest economic recovery since World War II. His point was that this was President Obama’s fault.
I have many criticisms of President Obama, as you know. But what unsettles me about conservative criticisms of Obama revolves around issues of context and facts. Anyone who has been watching the price of oil drop over the last weeks may have guessed that the global economy is having a great deal of difficulty recovering from the Great Recession. In fact, some parts of the world remain in recession or have returned to recession. Japan, for instance, has been economically stagnant. The U.S. has edged out of the recession.
The problem in the U.S. goes beyond any one presidential administration. Since 1975, the living standard for the average working person has been stagnant or dropping. This is a documented fact. It relates to several factors, including the changes in the global capitalist economy (specifically what we refer to as globalization); changes in economic policies, e.g., privatization; and de-unionization, i.e., the attacks on workers and their right to organize. The combination of these factors has led to an economic malaise.
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