Huffington Magazine Issue 1 | Page 28

Voices momentum and, more generally, the economy is having problems maintaining the growth vigor required to attain escape velocity and thus overcome the downward drag of too much debt accumulated over too many years. After three encouraging monthly employment reports (December 2011 to February 2012, where average net monthly job creation exceeded 200,000 in the context of generally improving economic data), the economy added fewer than 100,000 jobs per month in the next three-month period; worst of all, net new jobs in May came in at a disheartening 69,000. Taking into account those not counted because they have dropped out of the labor force altogether, the proportion of the adult population with jobs today is stuck at around 58 percent. This compares to the mid-60s-percentile numbers that prevailed in the years prior to the 2008 global financial crisis. All this speaks to both the extent of the economic and financial mess inherited by Obama and the inevitable difficulty of engineering a “normal recovery.” Whoever had come into the White House in January 2009 would have been challenged by an MOHAMED A. EL-ERIAN HUFFINGTON 06.17.12 economy that faces unusual and significant impediments in gaining the cyclical traction that has been “typical” in the past – what we labeled back in May 2009 as the “new normal.” Indeed, even the unprecedented amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus that has already been applied — an extraordinary turbocharge if you like — has not enabled the economy to attain escape velocity. The message is clear. There are multi-year supply and demand problems that speak loudly to why the economy’s recovery This is remains disappointnot the time ing. No wonder it has to risk yet proven so inadequate another mid– especially in light of year economic all the Americans that slowdown are out of work, those that could that are having enoreven risk a mous difficulties makrecession.” ing ends meet, those that have already slipped into the poverty trap and the too many that have insufficient savings for their retirement years. And all this in an economy that, under Obama’s predecessors, got significantly more unequal in its distribution of income and wealth and, therefore, its social compact.