EconomicCrisis.US

The economy is gradually gaining strength, creating more jobs, and reducing the unemployment rate. Economic pain for American families, though, remains significant with relatively high unemployment, persistent long-term unemployment, lingering household wealth losses, and crushing debt burdens. The economy will have to grow much faster for much longer to restore economic security for America’s middle class.

The private sector drives growth and job creation, but the current economic recovery would be weaker and delayed had policymakers not taken steps in the past few years to invest in infrastructure and help the most vulnerable.
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In 1939, when John Steinbeck completed The Grapes of Wrath—a heart-wrenching tale of a family of sharecroppers forced out of their home during the Depression— roughly one-quarter of the U.S. population still lived on farms. Today, family farms are increasingly rare, and less than 2 percent of employed Americans work in agriculture.

But rather than viewing the decline of farming jobs as a tragedy, economists almost invariably count agriculture as a shining American success—the triumph of productivity. And why not? A handful of farmers using GPS-equipped combines and sophisticated moisture sensors can grow far more food than the population of an entire rural county in 1939. Food has become so plentiful and cheap in the United States that it has been blamed for the increase in obesity. And agricultural products have become one of the country’s chief exports, totaling more than $115 billion in 2010.
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History may one day judge the global economic crisis as the turning point that finally forced Washington to confront the runaway monster of military spending.

On Thursday, U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta is to spell out the details of an estimated $450 billion in military cuts.

At the same time, the Pentagon also fears it is expected to lose up to another $500 billion over this decade as its share of a second round of across-the-board cuts to reduce the overall federal deficit.

That would represent close to $1 trillion in reduced military spending over the next 10 or 12 years.
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It began with such promise. This time a year ago, forecasters were racing to upgrade their outlooks for what 2011 would hold. All the gears seemed to be locking into place for what could finally be the year that an economic recovery began in earnest. Three percent growth seemed like a sure bet; 4 percent seemed more than plausible.

Then reality set in. The first few pieces of economic data in 2011, the analysts chalked up to bad luck: first some nasty winter snowstorms, then a run-up in gasoline prices amid turmoil in the Middle East, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the worsening of Europe’s debt crisis, the divisive debt-ceiling debate.
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