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  • 1.  Crisis?

    Posted 03-30-2009 15:45
    Greetings. I am somewhat surprised by the silence on many of the lists to
    which I subscribe. Are we in the midst of an economic crisis that challenges
    conventional wisdom about the appropriate boundaries of government and
    markets? Or is this a cyclical downturn that tempers the excesses of the 1990s?

    I find these developments consistent with the diagnosis of crisis:

    waves of bank failures touching substantial proportion of mortgage-holders
    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBAMA_ECONOMY?SITE=CAVIC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

    near collapse of auto manufacturing
    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBAMA_AUTOS?SITE=SCCHA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

    prospect of massive state budget deficits --- layoffs, days without pay, etc.
    http://www.vvdailypress.com/articles/budget_10931___article.html/fireworks_legislative.html

    collapse of value in pension assets. The Pension Benefit Guaranty
    Corporation ia feeling the strain.
    http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/03/30/pension_insurer_shifted_to_stocks/?page=full

    Is this merely the business cycle or something more profound? Actually, the
    answer is easy. The business cycle is sufficiently amorphous as a concept to
    include all possible economic outcomes.
    Call any period of retrenchment a "market correction" and the "crisis"
    disappears.

    Just curious. Private e-mails welcome.

    David C. Jacobs
    Associate Professor of Labor, Business, and Society
    Earl Graves School of Business and Management
    Morgan State University
    Baltimore, Maryland
    http://dc.david.jacobs.googlepages.com/welcome.html

    Religion and Work: Introduction to a Symposium:
    http://dc.david.jacobs.googlepages.com/DJexcerpt.pdf

    BUSINESS SCHOLARS SUPPORT THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT
    http://dc.david.jacobs.googlepages.com/businessscholars.html

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