Last weeks data on unemployment is the latest confirmation that the economy is going south. Nothing that the federal government or Federal Reserve Bank has done so far has contained a widening and spreading economic recession. The economic downturn that was triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble and the seizing up of credit and money markets is winding its way to nearly every sector of the economy and to every region of the country.
While no one is predicting a meltdown, many analysts are not taking that possibility off the table either. One would have to go back 30 years to find economic conditions as fragile and dire as they are today. Blame for this crisis which weighs on the heaviest on working people should squarely fall on those who have their hands on the economic and political and economic levers of power and the system of capitalism..
Needed immediately are aggressive measures that to raise living standards of working people and to create jobs to rebuild our country’s infrastructure. Imperative too is a quick end to the Iraq war which is draining away billions of dollars for a war that should never have been fought. And finally, measures to address the needs of the hardest hit victims and communities of this crisis are in order. Like earlier economic crises, this one too hits racially oppressed people and women with special force.