Employment Down, Profits Up: The Aftermath of the Financial Crisis in 1 Graph
Six years after the recession started, five years after the crash, and four years after the recovery began, the share of the country with a job has declined by more than 7 percent. And yet … corporate profits are crushing, again. The stock market is setting weekly nominal records, again. Home prices are rising, again. Finance is flush, again.
The financial crisis supposedly "changed everything." It really hasn't. Why not?
Here's where I feel like I'm supposed to tell you to get mad, and how to get mad. But the thing is … get mad at what, exactly? At whom? The lesson of this story — and of the graph that leads this piece — isn't as simple as: There is one thing to blame, and we know what it is. It isn't as simple as: Washington cares more about bank profits than bankrupt people.
The frustrating lesson is: Lots of people messed up inside of a messed-up system.
Keep reading: Employment Down, Profits Up: The Aftermath of the Financial Crisis in 1 Graph – Derek Thompson – The Atlantic.
