If it's not there, did it ever really exist? 

Or maybe that $19 trillion is being hoarded off shore - say, the Cayman Islands.

The reason there are 14 million still out of work or underemployed is the direct result of private sector hiring and labor practices. Companies regularly state they are 'unsure' of the economy and are deliberately holding off hiring. Companies regularly state they are cutting employee hours to 25 specifically to avoid providing health care for their employees (some who have been there a while and used to be full time). In doing so, those companies game the system and foist their responsibility onto the government, costing us all while their bottom lines swell. 

the most productive and dynamic elements of our society.

You know? The people who create economic growth?

The people referenced in that quote are, in actuality, the workers, who are the most productive in history. And yet, from 2000 to 2006, wages stagnated; beginning in 2007 and for every year since, wages have actually declined despite consistently higher worker productivity. 

For the last two years running, it is reported that corporations have seen the highest profits they've ever had. Ever. Had.

Part of that is directly attributable to OUR higher productivity and THEIR refusal to pay us for that productivity in amounts that would allow us to once again afford our own food, housing, utilities, health care, and return to what used to be the American standard of living.

The article does everything to describe 'austerity' except to use the word. In Spain, where austerity is being done, the unemployment rate is 26%; unemployment among youth is 55%. In England, they are heading for a triple dip recession. Their GDP just shrank 0.3%. Austerity is not working.

Under Obama, we have significantly fewer public sector workers. So much fewer in fact that our current unemployment rate would be 1-2% LOWER if none had been cut. In the meantime, Obama comes out with a jobs plan and the GOP dismisses it out of hand. Later, though, when it was politically expedient, the GOP did get on board with job creation for vets. Great. What about all the other Americans who would have had jobs under the original proposal? 

For 2011, median household income was $50,054, 8.7% lower than what it was in 2007 and 8.9% lower than it was in 1999 when salaries peaked in this country. That's a full 13 years ago now. 13 years of wage losses certainly isn't about government spending, unless of course, we consider two unfunded wars (one still ongoing), two tax breaks for the wealthy which did NOT result in higher employment/earnings, and the change to Medicare Part D, also unfunded, as well as the UI benefits costs shouldered by the government when the private sector gamed the economy, and the banks were bailed out, not once (Bush) but twice (then Obama) to keep this and the world economies from completely bottoming out. While the GOP wants to blame all our woes on those receiving unemployment benefits and some group it calls "welfare moms" who, in GOP mythology, are responsible for every bad thing that has every happened to humanity from the way they describe it, the fact is, the GOP has, through its own policy and obstruction, contributed to, and perpetuated, a very slow economic recovery which has affected every one of us in palpable, tangible, disturbing ways.

In the meantime, S&P is back to within 18 points of what it was in 2007 before the BUSH recession hit. The Dow is more than double what it was in 2008 after that crash. 

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20130126_S_P_closes_above_1_500.html

And come to think of it, I haven't seen one article on the Vine about the latter point since reports began surfacing yesterday. Why is that?

The private sector and the GOP need to look in their respective mirrors to answer the question about where this so-called $19 trillion went. 

The rest of us know one thing. It sure isn't in OUR bank accounts, despite our working 1.5 - 3 jobs to try and just make ends meet.

The above is my response to this seed: http://patriot-8888.newsvine.com/_news/2013/01/26/16711447-obamas-real-cost-19-trillion-in-missing-gdp 

Comments are open as long as posts remain civil. Spell the President's name right. Don't use terms like 'libtard' or 'wingnuts', please.