Hope triumphs over experience

Peter,

Recessions may always be bad for people but growth isn't always good for the masses. Who cares if the economy is growing at X% if none of it ends up in their pockets.

In a free market economy, it is almost impossible for an economy to grow without growth in the incomes of the human beings that inhabit that economy.

If government doesn't overregulate the economy (something left-of-center folks often like to do), you will have a lot of competition between businesses.

You will have competition based on the price and quality of consumer goods and services.

And you will also have competition based on wages and benefits offered to employees.

Ever wonder why, say, electrical engineers make much more than the minimum wage even though few are unionzed? It's because a business that wants to hire an electrical engineer can't get many to work for them if they hire them at the minimum wage and no benefits.

So, if the more our government allows the free enterprise system to work, the less likely we will have a growing GDP with "flat" per capita income.

All one has to do is look around the world and compare, say, the economy of Ireland with the economy of France. Ireland cut its corporate tax rates in the 1980s and it has an increasing GDP and a housing boom. France? Let's just say that France is one of the most obvious replies to someone who says, "Socialism works."

It also has a minimum wage of ~13 dollars an hour , almost free 3rd level education and a whole host of other stuff. Ireland isn't America any more than it is France.

I'll believe it when I see it. We've been hearing this imminent recession stuff all year, including in the run up to, and during, that smoking-hot, just revised up, 4.9%-GDP-growth third quarter.

I agree that it won't last forever, but the relentless economic doom and gloom from the, er, fiscal progressives has gotten really tiresome.