spending and that s because trat decisional path to prosperity is still strewn with debris from the last storm. the big one, the recession. your job and the wage you bring home is the single most important way to build wealth. but despite net job growth for two straight years, job creation seems to be slowing down. earnings for middle income americans fell some 7% in the past decade. and then there rinare investmen. that is complicated in this volatile market. for those of you looking for a safe harbor by investing in fixed income or parking money in the shelter of a bank, you re getting nothing. even our virtually nonexistent inflation is higher than what you re earning. you are being penalized for not taking risks. ironically, owning your home may be the one vehicle to personal we will thaj shows some signs of brightness. home price maze have hit bottom and finally bouncing back. if that s the case, then now is the best time to buy a home or refinance a loan. interest rates
on the other side, conservatives argue the problem is not weak demand but obstacles on the supply side. businesses and people will spend if they re in an environment that requires them to do so, reducing taxes, increasing regulation. in general i accept that a country needs a structure of taxes and incentives that reward growth. but beyond this rhetoric, what specifically would help right now? one of america s best businessmen has an answer. fred smith, the founder of federal express, argues that the key to job growth is stimulating private spending on capital goods and services. there is only one statistic that is almost 100% correlated to job creation, he says, private investment in equipment and software. but what makes companies spend on equipment and software? is it more orders from their customers, or a better climate for business investment? smith argues the latter. he argues that businesses should be given more incentives to invest and create products. he wants to low
able to get the russians to help out in ousting assad. and what the heck is a higgs bozon and why should you care that astronauts found it? america s favorite astro physicist, neil degrasse tyson will explain it all. first, here s my take america has had one more bad month for jobs. 80,000 created last month. this seems a depressing piece of a pattern. over the last two decades, u.s. economic recoveries have tended to be slow and jobless. in every recession from 1948 to 1990, jobs came back to pre-recession levels six months after the economy returned to its pre-recession level. after the recession of the early 1990s, jobs came back 15 months later. after the slowdown of the early 2000s, jobs took 39 months to come back. this time, it may take about 60 months, five years, for employment to return to pre-recession levels, according to an analysis by mckinsey. what happened? well, over the past quarter century, two large forces have swept the world. globalization and the
talk is cheap. actions speaks very loud. and if you want to see the results of his economic policies look around hawaii and the country. up see and the policies the . this is your chance to rents are a vert on the did he participate over how to grow the economy, how to create good jobs. how to pay down or debts. your vote will finally determine the path this we take as a nation. not just tomorrow, but for years to come. i love it. that s president obama and mitt romney presenting their very different economic solutions for america s future. both of them deliver their messages, of course, the key battle ground state of ohio. let s just take a look briefly at their economic plans. beginning with the president s it looks forward. one of these goes forward and one goes backward. i bet you can t tell which one i believe goes forward. president obama s plan, specifically he wants a tax structure that awards business that his create jobs in america. and not overseas. he wants
environmental interests. that is absurd, gas prices are set to the market, and it doesn t take a political genius to debunk that. why would a president in the middle of a reelection want americans to feel pain at the pump? does the president deserve credit for you for lower gas prices? krista freeland is editor, and a democratic strategist with the center for american progress. krista, let me start with you. as you know, for months republicans have been accusing the president of having an environmental agenda to make gas prices go up. here was haley barber last summer. the president s policies have been clearly to drive up the cost of energy so americans would use less of it. that s not environmental policy, that s their policy. they think we ll make less pollution, making all these alternative energy sources more competitive. and newt gingrich earlier this year tied gas prices