To return to my theme of "numbers are a bitch"...here is one to chew on: $1.3 trillion. It's a gap--a BIG gap...and in that number is part of the story of the crisis we're in.
At this point, after checking in with my colleague and friend Dean Baker, the Gross Domestic Product is running at about an inflation-adjusted $13.3 trillion. We should be running, if historical trends were playing out, at about $14.5 trillion--Dean pointed out correctly to me that we're on a slower trajectory than normal because of the longer-term trend and the deep unemployment.
But, that's a $1.3 trillion hole.
Even in Washington, D.C., that's a lot of money.
That hole is, largely, because people don't have money to spend--2/3 of our economy was typically dependent on consumer spending. If you are leveraged to the hilt, your house is no longer worth enough to draw money out of its deflated equity AND you either are unemployed or under-employed or working for pathetic wages--you don't have money to spend.
Hence, the black hole of $1.3 trillion.
Which seemingly escapes the geniuses in Congress and the White House.
How to fill the $1.3 trillion hole?
The obvious answer: a massive emergency jobs project on the order of a trillion dollars. Which is what the Job Party is calling for, partly funded by a massive elimination of corporate welfare.