Our Crumbling Foundation

By BOB HERBERT
NYT

I’m not sure that the catastrophic job losses of this recession, the worst since the Great Depression, have really sunk into the public’s consciousness. And that would mean that the ground has not been prepared for the kind of high-powered remedies needed to get the economy back into some kind of reasonable shape.

The Times ran a front-page story on Monday that said job losses are forcing ever larger numbers of homeowners who once had solid credit to fall seriously behind on their mortgages, thus amplifying the foreclosure crisis.

And now the Center for Labor Market Studies has compiled data showing that the recession’s effects have been “disastrous beyond belief” for some groups, including young men, men without college degrees and black men. These job losses among young workers have ominous long-term implications for American families and the economy as a whole.

At the same time, there was a development in Congress last week that should have been seen as significant but could not elbow its way into the media precincts obsessed with Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and swine flu.

(More here.)