Unhappy News

Mortimer Zuckerman has an article in The Wall Street Journal you definitely should read, after taking a handful of Prozac to ward off depression. Unfortunately you'll need a subscription to read it in WSJ. I'll show you some choice bits:

For the 80% of Americans born after World War II, this is their Great Depression.

A stunning 70% of U.S. retailers missed their sales targets in June, the third consecutive month that sales have weakened and the worst showing since November 2009.

Fifty percent of the jobs created since the recession hit have been part time, with no benefits and a wage that's inadequate to enter the middle class.

The official unemployment rate is 8.2%. But if you add to that the number of discouraged workers who have dropped out of the labor market since the recession began in early 2008 - approximately eight million - the rate would be an alarming 12%. (snip) If you add the number of part-time workers into the mix, the unemployment rate climbs to 14.9%.

Another depressant has been the drop - by more than 40% - of the average American family's net worth over the past five years.  

Three workers out of twenty are unemployed, have quit looking for work, or are working part time. And that doesn't count the hundreds of thousands who have "qualified" for disability and likely will never work again. Remember what happened to Herbert Hoover?