The human toll of the recession, reported to be the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, has been so searing that it could be considered cruel to evaluate this event for any benefits. More than six million people have lost their jobs since this financial catastrophe began and, according to The New York Times, well over one million of those will lose their unemployment insurance benefits between now and the end of the year. The number of people who have no means of support will almost certainly rise as unemployment moves toward 11% and a life of deprivation becomes more commonplace in America as each month passes.
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The devastation of the recession which may end early next year will not be forgotten as long as anyone who suffered through it is still alive. It is like the Great Depression that way. Some of these scars will be permanent. The opportunity America has at this point in the fragile recovery may not have existed before because of national arrogance and it may not exist again if the economy remains in a shambles long enough. The recession has given America a window, perhaps of only two or three years, to refresh its economic fortunes in a way they have not been refreshed since the core of the business strength of the US moved from the manufacturing to the service sector. The prosperity that went with that evolution may indeed have been a false promise. America may need both a powerful manufacturing and services sector with some reasonable access to capital, a credit and financial system that is reasonably transparent, protection of the intellectual property of the nation’s companies, and the realization that not everyone who can work gets a job simply because they live in the US.
Americans did not get the recession that they deserved but they did get the recession that they needed.
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