The Economic Recovery That Wasn't

The continuing contraction in the world's two biggest markets, the United States and the European Union, does not promise well for emergent countries hoping for export-led growth. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said the GDP of Japan will shrink by 6.3 percent this year. It said GDP in Germany will contract by 5.3 percent and in United Kingdom by 3.7 percent while GDP in the United States drops by 4 percent._Walker

Obama is presiding over a job-loss rate of 8 million per year. Unemployment is growing across Europe and large regions of North America. The US government is pumping deficit spending into the economy faster than it can be reasonably incorporated, and still there are few credible signs of a sustainable recovery. Part of the problem is that the toxic debt that triggered the problem is still out there -- and Obama / Pelosi are determined to generate as much toxic debt as they can.

The first fear is that the economy will slide again next year when the deficit spending runs out. The question is whether the world's governments have the political will to continue the deficit spending and whether the world's bond markets will buy the flood of government debt that is being auctioned -- and at what price. Last week, the U.S. Treasury had to boost its interest rate to 3.3 percent to sell $14 billion of 10-year bonds.

The second reason to question whether the recovery will last is China, where the official figures showing growth at a rate of 6.1 percent in the first three months of this year are looking more and more suspect. Electricity output declined in the same period by almost 6 percent, so analysts question how China can grow without power, particularly when government spending is going into the power-hungry construction industry.

But the biggest reason to fear that this recovery may not be sustainable is that the world's financial system has not yet been fixed. The banks are still in deep trouble. The International Monetary Fund reported this month that a total of $4.1 trillion will have to be written off by the world's banks, and so far they have written off barely a quarter of that. The United States is in slightly better shape. Its banks have written off half of their losses, but Europe's banks have so far written off less than 20 percent of theirs. _Walker

Obama and his zombie government army of sycophants are behaving much like Louis and Marie, shortly before the guillotine was put to use. Although "the divine right of kings" was never meant to apply to US presidents, a lot of things have grown rather twisted under the short -- and so far tragically suicidal -- Obama reich.

Things could have never grown so bad without media complicity. When the day of accounting comes for the rampant incompetence and destructiveness, the media deserves its full share of scrutiny and judgment.