by PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 15, 2009
By now everyone knows the sad tale of Bernard Madoff’s duped investors. They looked at their statements and thought they were rich. But then, one day, they discovered to their horror that their supposed wealth was a figment of someone else’s imagination.
Unfortunately, that’s a pretty good metaphor for what happened to America as a whole in the first decade of the 21st century.
Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.
Read on...
Peacenik is thinking some people think Peacenik is a Doomsdayer. Particularly after Doomers made the front page of Sunday's Toronto Star and Peacenik sometimes uses the language of Doomers. But as Peacenik said, Peacenik just reads the news and comments. Here we have Krugman again talking about the illusory surge in asset values over the last decade. And the simutaneous real surge in personal and corporate debt. Peacenik asks everyone to read Dan's post at theautomaticearth. Everyone is broke. Every state. Every city. Every town. Every business. And every individual. Peacenik asks the reader to just scroll through Illargi's post at theautomaticearth. Read the red headlines. GM and California and Ireland and Latvia will probaby declare bankruptcy this coming week. Peacenik read the headlines. Peacenik thinks this is the worst economy anyone living has ever seen. Imagine that. The financial industry has created more debt than the world's GDP. Banks, pension plans and countries are broke. These are facts. Does that make Peacenik a Doomer?
