Recession is NOT over: "Hard Times on Long Island"

 

As an Economist, I have been *insisting* that the "Recession" has not ended. Government practice is to claim that a Recession is taking place when Gross Domestic Product ("GDP"), the summed value of all goods and services created in a society's economy, falls for two quarters in a row.  Since the GDP appears to be growing at a paltry1% - 3%, they claim the recession is 'over.'

Unfortunately, the purely number-based approach to calculating GDP ignores the distribution of that growth (Is Goldman Sachs selling 5% more investment instruments, while more Americans lose jobs?), as well as the quality of that growth ($1 million dollars worth of new military hardware is considered 'better' than only a half million dollars worth of new health care provided).  The pure numbers ignore what is happening 'here on the ground.'  And while gigantic financial firms got bailed out with tax dollars from the Federal Government for risky and unethical practices, these same firms are foreclosing on American's homes at unprecedented rates (I always thought that if the Feds were going to 'give' money to banks, it should have been *required8 that all funds be used to pay up all overdue mortgages, thus saving a crumbling middle class while still infusing cash into the banking system).

Finally, a documentary by Blowback Productions, puts a "Human Face" on the suggestion that the recession is over by chronicling the lives of four families from my old stomping grounds: Long Island, New York. Due to air on HBO this Monday (July 9), Blowback issued the following promotional piece:

"The Great Recession "officially" ended in the summer of 2009, but for 25 million unemployed and underemployed Americans the fallout continues. For too many, their middle-class life has been foreclosed and their dreams have turned into nightmares. Sadly, their stories have too often been ignored. In a strange way they have been “disappeared,” evicted from our collective conscience – a permanent new underclass of long-term unemployed.

Located on Long Island, the birthplace of the post-war suburban American Dream, this documentary follows the story of the long-term unemployed and the shrinking of the middle class by chronicling the lives of four families. Starting in the Summer of 2010, which was supposed to be the summer of recovery, and continuing through the holiday season six months later, we witness the growing difficulties and despair as these people search in vain for employment while their plight and pain are too often invisible to the political and media elite.

This film hopes to remind us of their humanity and restore respect and dignity to their struggle.

Monday July 9th @ 9 PM Eastern on HBO "

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