Money makes money

To the editor:

Bill Clinton’s mantra during his initial White House run was “it’s the economy stupid.” The nation was mired in a five-year long recession that began Oct. 19, 1987, “Black Monday.” On that day, the stock market dropped over 22 percent, the largest one-day loss in history. 

Two decades later, on Sept. 15, 2008, history was repeating. The market fall was spread over a longer period of time, but the nadir was deeper. By March 2009, the stock market was down half from a year earlier.  Both times millions of jobs, homes and life savings were lost; nearly nine million jobless and four million homes under foreclosure by the end of the Great Recession.

Why two-thirds of Americans classify today’s economy as bad is beyond me. Higher prices are painful, but low prices are little comfort when you’re out of work and your nest egg is gone. 

What I hear from some is that working folks are facing real-world struggles. Really? My working-class parents faced real-world struggles every day of their lives. That wasn’t a lifelong bad economy, it was the result of an unfair economic system.  

As Ben Franklin noted “Money makes money. And the money that makes money, makes money.”  Nothing’s changed; corporate and investment earnings are setting records. Yet, workers still struggle waiting for the riches to “trickle down.”

The economy is great.  U.S. GDP is $29 trillion and growing at a healthy 3 percent. Employment is at an all-time high and unemployment hovers around a 50-year low. What is, and has always been missing is a fair share of the pie for those who bake it. Maybe today’s mantra should be “it’s how the economy works stupid.”                

Joseph Cannisi