Why They Must Act

You know me with my love of nifty graphs. Well, this depressing one–with an even more depressing title–comes from this week’s issue of The Economist. I don’t know if you remember that I told you one of the sayings for a short unsustainable uptick in a market is that even a dead cat bounces if you throw it. So, a small market rally that falls apart is called a dead cat market. Well, think about that appellation in association with the idea that “Dead cats do better”. Then, be truly horrified because this is not just any market, this one reflects our job market.

HERE’S the way these things typically work. A deep recession is usually followed by a rapid recovery. From 1934 to 1936, the American economy grew by 10.9%, 8.9%, and 13.0% per year, respectively. From 1983 to 1985, annual growth came in at 4.5%, 7.2%, and 4.1%. For now, it seems the American economy will struggle to grow by 3% in the first full calendar year after the recession. Still, growth of any sort typically ends up producing some employment growth, and so rapid recoveries from deep recessions usually produce a lot of employment growth:

Employment sprang back by 3.5% in the 12 months following the end of the deep 1981-82 downturn. When the economy started growing again in March 1933 the employment bounceback was springier still. No such turnaround has emerged this time. The American economy has seen downturns this severe and recoveries this jobless but never the one on top of the other.

I’m bringing this up again because there was an Obama apologist who myiq2xu let out of spam last night talking about how you could blame Clinton for all kinds of things–while still not giving him credit for anything like a good recovery–including losing the House of Representatives back then. Another Obama apologist I read at FDL was saying that Clinton had it easy because he didn’t come in during a recession. It’s amazing to me how history gets so rewritten. These kinds of comments must come from children that lived through the 80s in Montessori preschool with their parents footing the bill. This election will be lost on lack of action, vision, discussion, and leadership on the overwhelming problem of joblessness. After 18 months, it’s Obama’s jobless recovery.

First, you can see in that graph that there was a recession in 1990-91. We recovered nicely from it during the first Clinton term. We even recovered strongly from the monetary policy led recession of the early 1980s. Once interest rates settled down and Reagan spent a lot of money rebuilding assets in the military, the job market recovered nicely. Better yet, take a look at the recovery of jobs during the Great Depression. Rather impressive isn’t it?

Usually, when you see a very bad recession, you see very strong job growth as we recover. This has not happened with the last two recession which started under the Dubya terms. We’ve had two jobless recessions in a row and very close together. As a matter of fact, the number of people employed right now are the same number of people employed in 1999. We’ve completely erased a decade.

So, what’s lacking? Well, that’s easy. That would be a strong and forceful demand side stimulus package specifically targeted to job creation. At all those times there was no huge tax breaks to the upper class so they can speculate in the markets with their monies and create the next bubble. Bush 41 wasn’t stupid.

Reagan and Clinton both raised taxes after the recoveries had taken hold. Reagan actually increased taxes by more than any other president. It was the one addressed to fixing the baby boomer problem that was upcoming in Social Security. But, he did that after a strong batch of fiscal spending; again focused on rebuilding the navy which brought about shipyard jobs. (They’ve just announced this year in Louisiana, that one of those huge ship builders–including the one that just built the USS New York–is closing its shipyards that are scattered through out the state. Not good.) It also helped when the Fed went back to normal interest rate levels. If you haven’t heard my story about my first home purchase in 1982, then you should. My interest rate at the time was just under 17% on a thirty year fixed mortgage. Luckily, by 1985, I got a new one at 9%. Yes, that’s still high by today’s standards, isn’t it?

The difference back then was that I was getting good raises and I was not alone.. I haven’t seen a good raise in 10 years. In fact, I’ve been furloughed recently (which means they don’t pay you for days you work) and now–along with half of the tenured senior faculty in my department– I’ve been laid off. I’m about 7 years out from cashing in on the retirement plan. Most of them are with a few years, but, now, they’ve lost that. That, mind you, is in a college that’s a profit center. Remember, teaching MBAs is a university cash cow. That’s why there are so many of them.

The deal is there is a tremendous amount of ground to make up right now in the labor market which worries me to no end because no one in Washington DC appears to get it. The Atlantic calls this the era of joblessness. They get it.

There is unemployment, a brief and relatively routine transitional state that results from the rise and fall of companies in any economy, and there is unemployment—chronic, all-consuming. The former is a necessary lubricant in any engine of economic growth. The latter is a pestilence that slowly eats away at people, families, and, if it spreads widely enough, the fabric of society. Indeed, history suggests that it is perhaps society’s most noxious ill.

The worst effects of pervasive joblessness—on family, politics, society—take time to incubate, and they show themselves only slowly. But ultimately, they leave deep marks that endure long after boom times have returned. Some of these marks are just now becoming visible, and even if the economy magically and fully recovers tomorrow, new ones will continue to appear. The longer our economic slump lasts, the deeper they’ll be.

If it persists much longer, this era of high joblessness will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults—and quite possibly those of the children behind them as well. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar white men—and on white culture. It could change the nature of modern marriage, and also cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a kind of despair and dysfunction not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years.

This is not a time for complacency or silly season politics. This is a time for a brave approach to solving our jobless problem. The Republicans are brain dead on the issue so there’s absolutely no hope of anything coming from them. What I don’t understand is this new Democratic party. Look at the graph and tell me that your eyes are lying to you about the impact of FDR’s bold vision and action for the US during the Great Depression. Why can’t we get similar initiative and leadership now that we’re suffering from the Great Recession?

We don’t need an extension of capital gains preferential treatment. That just brings on more bubbles. We don’t need an extension of a tax break to the wealthiest inheritance babies. That doesn’t do anything but fund a donor class. We certainly don’t need to focus on the ever growing budget deficit because that’s not going to change unless we end this joblessness. Mr. President, tear down the wall that is stopping Democrats from being Democrats.

What Obama Said BUT with Conviction (no waffles)

Without the emergence of a genuine spirit of religious pluralism, there is no hope for the development of harmony based on true interreligious understanding.

From: “The Challenge of Other Religions” By His Holiness the Dali Lama

I’m sure this post is going to irritate a lot of people. I know this tends to be Myiq2xu’s job here but I’m going to do it because I’ve never backed away from talking about what is right even though it might not be particularly emotionally palatable. Whenever we mention any thing that remotely associated with Islam or Israel or Palestine, people become unhinged. (In fact, we’ve had people leave and we’ve had to ban people over the issue. So, please be civil. I expect many folks to disagree with me.) The entire area is almost by definition one big morass of hard and complex issues wrapped up in emotional diatribes and in many cases, family histories.

We lost Helen Thomas’ voice to irrational discourse on the issue. We lost Octavia Nasr also. I am speaking up because we can’t afford to lose important voices and stop important dialogues.

The headlines today are full of what Obama did or didn’t say about the potential Mosque to be built near Ground Zero. I still haven’t figure out why all Muslims are to blame for the few that flew those airplanes into the Twin Towers. Timothy McVeigh blew up a building with a day care and killed innocent government workers and babies. He barely gets a mention in the news these days. We don’t feel the same thing about right wing nut militias or paint all veterans with the McVeigh brush. Some how, just being a Muslim or talking about Islam as a viable religious choice makes some folks crazy. I know part of this links to the history of Israel and I know that there’s historical issues in India with Pakistan. There’s also parts of the tribal practices that are anathema; like genital mutilation of women in some parts of Africa that are now Muslim and the entire cult of covering women completely up which is linked a lot to Arabic culture. There are many places where Islam is practiced that have not adopted any of these rituals because they are a cultural thing and some cultural things get codified in the religious practice of a particular area.

There’s a lot of violent craziness in extreme Islamic fascism. There’s also been Christian fascists that blow up abortion clinics and kill abortion providers. For the most part, in the Western World, we’ve educated some of the barbarian practices out of the majority of people. This is not the case in the third world, but again, they’ve got poor access to everything from food to health to schools to every benefit that comes from living in an open society. That’s why there’s larger numbers of them.

We do live–at least I thought we did–in an open society. We also live in a country where our basic principals and commitments to each other are stated in The Constitution. That’s because the founders came from a time when religious fundamentalism and closed societies were still a norm in Europe. They remembered the days of being slaughtered when you were a protestant or Jew in a catholic country (that’s how my protestant and Jewish ancestors made it here) or when you were a catholic or a Jew in a protestant country. They put up laws to protect every one because they knew how quickly a political coup can put a favored group into a persecuted position really quickly. As recently as the Northern Ireland terrorism, we still saw that come into play.

For the reasons of 9/11 and the continued yammering by some people with access to media, we’ve forgotten all that history. A terrorist is a terrorist and a fanatic is a fanatic. They come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. Open societies and rules of laws, however, teach us how to deal with these people without resulting to bigotry. For example, Christian proselytizing offends me to no end. Frankly, if I were acting on my primal instincts, I’d pull out a gun and shoot every one of them. It’s irritating, insulting, patronizing, and obnoxious behavior. However, I live in an open society with laws that protect that and as a civilized human being, I know to smile and walk away. (Although, I was known to turn the garden hose and water my plants “over actively” when they were acting up around Mardi Gras.) The only time I enter a church is when it’s historically relevant and I’m interested in the architecture. The same would go for a mosque, a synagogue, or a Hindu Temple. But, every one has a right to build them, worship in them, and avoid taxes with them in this country. PERIOD.

Also, it’s not about some perceived insensitivity to an aggrieved majority. It’s about the rights of minorities as outlined in OUR Constitution. If they start plotting terrorist activities in there, then by all means send in the FBI, arrest people, and close it down. Until then it’s protected speech and religious activities. Again, I was perfectly miserable when a bunch of big barn churches set up in my neighborhood in Omaha. One was southern baptist and the other some Evangelical cult attached to a minister who moved his daughter and family within a block of mine. They’re always out and about protesting anything having to do with ‘gay’ culture and independent women. It was terrifically annoying, but it’s their right and nothing I could do was going to stop these people from building their behemoth buildings to shake, quake, and annoyingly, knock on my door to ask me if I’d been saved. (Now, I live in gay enclaves and bohemian neighborhoods where they are unlikely to set foot.) Again, I treat them like any door-to-door sales person, I say no thank you, and close the door in their face because, in an open society, with rule of law, that’s what we’re taught to do. It’s not what you’re taught to do in places in countries that can’t even get electricity and clean water. That’s the root of all these issues.

So, what Obama said last night before he triangulated this morning was this:

White House officials said earlier in the day that Mr. Obama was not trying to promote the project, but rather sought more broadly to make a statement about freedom of religion and American values. “In this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion,” Mr. Obama said at the Coast Guard station. “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.

“And I think it’s very important as difficult as some of these issues are that we stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about.”

At the dinner on Friday night, Mr. Obama had proclaimed that “as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.”

That’s absolutely the correct thing to say.

Now, maybe it’s because in my area of finance and economics I am more surrounded by Hindus and Muslims than most people, but I’ve been exposed to practitioners of Islam since the 1970s. I’ve found more differences between me and the Southern Baptists on Dodge Street in Omaha who wouldn’t condemn violence in abortion clinics and murdering of Doctors than I’ve found with my Islamic colleagues and mentors. I frequently sit and wait while my colleagues do their prayers in their office so we can return to work together. They attend mosques and they need them just as much as those Southern Baptists on Dodge Street in Omaha need their megachurch. It’s not for me but again, it’s not for me to tell them not to build them or go there. If I’m offended by either, tough toenails, because it’s an open society with rule of law and The Constitution and it’s their right to do it and my right to complain about it.

President Obama waffled on this this morning and, as usual, he’s not made any of these statements with any intonation of commitment. Let’s look at a contrast here.

Last week, New York City removed the final construction hurdle for the project, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spoke forcefully in favor of it.

Here’s his speech and part of it that’s just damned right.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.”

Of course it’s not popular, of course right wing nuts will use this to stir up the emotions of people who still hurt from that horrible day of 9/11. But again, this is an open society, with rule of law, and a Constitution that protects religious activity.

President Milquetoast said the right thing. Leave it to me, to piss you all off, and write it forcefully with commitment.

And again, I’d live in a religion free zone if I could have my own way.

Now is the Summer of our Discontent

Nile Gardiner isn’t one of those people I’d exactly pal around with, but he’d make for an interesting dinner guest on the odd occasion. After all, Dr. Gardiner is associated with the dread Heritage Foundation which puts out a lot of propaganda under the heading of research and is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher “Center for Freedom”. Try saying that with a straight face. Well, he did work for her at one time.

Any way, he’s written an interesting article for The Telegraph called “The stunning decline of Barack Obama: 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown”. It’s worth some consideration albeit it needs a warning label before consumption. The opening statement alone has me questioning his grasp on reality. I’m not sure still how any one can say that there’s any ruling liberal elite right now. It’s more like the best working example of corporate cronyism I’ve ever read about since the Gilded Age. But then his job is that of a right wing meme maker. Ideologues have that act down pretty well.

The last few weeks have been a nightmare for President Obama, in a summer of discontent in the United States which has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites, so much so that even the Left has begun to turn against the White House.

However, here are some points worthy of consideration. His discussion of dismal poll numbers for Obama are astonishing.

The RealClearPolitics average of polls now has President Obama at over 50 per cent disapproval, a remarkably high figure for a president just 18 months into his first term. Strikingly, the latest USA Today/Gallup survey has the President on just 41 per cent approval, with 53 per cent disapproving.

There are an array of reasons behind the stunning decline and political fall of President Obama, chief among them fears over the current state of the US economy, with widespread concern over high levels of unemployment, the unstable housing market, and above all the towering budget deficit. Americans are increasingly rejecting President Obama’s big government solutions to America’s economic woes, which many fear will lead to the United States sharing the same fate as Greece.

Growing disillusionment with the Obama administration’s handling of the economy as well as health care and immigration has gone hand in hand with mounting unhappiness with the President’s aloof and imperial style of leadership, and a growing perception that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans, especially at a time of significant economic pain. Barack Obama’s striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience) has played a big part in undermining his credibility with the US public, with his lacklustre handling of the Gulf oil spill coming under particularly intense fire.

I’m not sure I’d consider Obama’s approach to be a big government solution as much as I would call it a putting the criminals in charge of the crime scene approach but I do agree with him about the “striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience)” part. His tours around the country to plants and businesses in trouble seem in line with Prince Charles going around the UK trying to experience what life is like outside the Palace. I just don’t see Obama as having the least bit of empathy or feel for what it takes to make ends meet. Even though he and Dubya both were legacies for Harvard, for some reason Dubya managed to shake the prep school cheerleader title for as much as some of the press wanted to hang it on him. Obama just has never left that persona and when cornered, he appears to take what some folks consider a ‘professorial’ posture. He gets more cold and aloof and displays lack of passion for even his policies. This is just weirdish behavior to me. I mean, if he truly believes that his health care and finance reform is good for the country, why doesn’t he just say it in a meaningful way?

This is evidenced in two points of Gardiner’s diatribe.

Again, now with the polls.

This deficit of trust in Obama’s leadership is central to his decline. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, “nearly six in ten voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country”, and two thirds “say they are disillusioned with or angry about the way the federal government is working.” The poll showed that a staggering 58 per cent of Americans say they do not have confidence in the president’s decision-making, with just 42 per cent saying they do.

For some one who inspired so much about generic change, he’s pathetically dull in the support of whatever change the Obama-Pelosi-Reid team have wrought.

Also, this point is germane.

In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2006 Convention speech in Chicago which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by Barack Obama’s flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan speech at West Point to his flat State of the Union address, President Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.

We’ve spoke about this before, but I fail to see any fire coming out of Obama’s belly except when he’s all wee weed up about himself or his campaign. When actually talking about the details of governance or the country, he’s a total Milford Milquetoast. I was actually disturbed by his complete lack of caring and empathy when he signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. He was giving the speech with the two families right there and he really read the accompanying speech like he was just waiting to get it over so he could go back to the links. It was an important piece of legislation for those interested in Civil Rights. You think he’d act more involved with it.

Watch this. Does he sound like he’s really thrilled with this event?

Again, many of the points in the article are typical right wing memes like we’re “drowning in debt” which again, is due to the bad economy mostly and a lot of war expenditures, but hold your nose on that and read some of the more salient points. Some are off mark although they do point to issues. For example, when was the last time you heard the President actually give some kind of vision on what our foreign policy is about these days? It’s like he’s left the conversation and let Hillary work on details rather than talking about any kind of cohesive policy with a world view. If we’ve put the Bush doctrine behind us, I’d certainly like to hear about an Obama doctrine. The McChyrstal flap showed us that even the central foreign policy issue Obama is concerned with is in complete disarray. He seems content with leaving every thing–including the overall structure for policy–to bureaucrats in charge of the details. There is no overarching strategy to any thing that’s shown up on the national scene these days including the Oil Spill.

If Dubya/Cheney had the country’s rudder headed the wrong direction, than Obama’s leading us rudderless. This vacuum is why so many ridiculous right wing memes are taking hold.

If the Gardiner line does anything, it successfully takes the appearance of not really caring about issues and frames them successfully. Look at some of the recent things like the “Michelle Antoinette” story. We have the Obama family switching their vacation plans this month from Martha’s Vineyard to Panama City Florida but only after that story wouldn’t die. There’s this feeling about Obama that he just doesn’t care about what the people think about things until he’s told to care. That’s a dangerous character flaw.

Then, there’s Gibbs going rogue this week by calling the base out on actually expecting the policy change to match the campaign rhetoric. I can understand the need to pummel the ‘elite’–that now being a mainstay of election season politics–but really, to suggest that people that care about policy and substance that you were manipulated when useful are a bunch of drug addicted whiners is something that even I find symptomatic of the tin ear character of this entire administration. It’s like they only wake up to what people say when it might impact them personally. Gibbsy is just the face on that entire attitude.

Again, I’m personally all wee weed up about this because I don’t really want to see the bat shit crazy Republican party back in office for another two decades because the current batch of Dinocrats won’t deliver on all the promises they made. Republicans may not have the policy answers down at all, but they’ve now got the wind at the backs. Who would think we’d see Gingrich back in the saddle thinking he’s got a shot at the presidency? All this two years after Dubya basically destoyed the party.

Right wing meme-makers like Gardiner can gain traction because we have a president and an administration with a tin ear. They’ve mistaken their mandate for change for the people with a mandate for just being there and doing whatever. I only wish he’d show as much passion about governance and policy as he did for himself and his campaign back then.

But, it ain’t gonna happen.

It’s almost two years since Obama basically destroyed the party. What now? Are we going to see a little passion about something other than campaign themes out of this presidency before we go back to the compassion of conservatives once again?

Lunatic Fringe? Professional Left? Gibbs redefines the last refuge of a scoundrel

I just had to front page this one. Some things are so silly you just can’t let them pass and most liberal bloggerss are not giving Robert Gibbs a pass so why should we? The Hill interviewed Obama’s press secretary and caught him in one of his typical unhinged moments. Basically, we’re all not satisfied with the pro-corporate, results avoiding legislation that’s come out Washington for the past two years because we’re a bunch of ungrateful crazies. Name calling is always a great response to the valid criticism of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid’s ability to sell out every democratic idea to the highest bidder and basically pass Heritage Foundation policies while the right screams socialism and gains political momentum! What the hell kind of success is this? Or perhaps, I should say What fresh Hell is this? Robert Gibbs’ mouth needs to be sent on a permanent vacation. Hopefully, the same place where his brain has already gone.

The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

So that’s the best he can do when defending extended illegal wire tapping, ramping up the Afghan War, selling out working class poor to insurance companies, and giving a few symbolic speeches then appointing commissions to study DADT while opposing gay marriage. And this administration is different how?

Here’s Glennzilla on said insults and said ‘progressive’ results-driven legislature the Dinocratic majority and president have achieved.

You may think that the reason you’re dissatisfied with the Obama administration is because of substantive objections to their policies: that they’ve done so little about crisis-level unemployment, foreclosures and widespread economic misery. Or because of the White House’s apparently endless devotion to Wall Street. Or because the President has escalated a miserable, pointless and unwinnable war that is entering its ninth year. Or because he has claimed the power to imprison people for life with no charges and to assassinate American citizens without due process, intensified the secrecy weapons and immunity instruments abused by his predecessor, and found all new ways of denying habeas corpus. Or because he granted full-scale legal immunity to those who committed serious crimes in the last administration. Or because he’s failed to fulfill — or affirmatively broken — promises ranging from transparency to gay rights.

But Robert Gibbs — in one of the most petulant, self-pitying outbursts seen from a top political official in recent memory, half derived from a paranoid Richard Nixon rant and the other half from a Sean Hannity/Sarah Palin caricature of The Far Left — is here to tell you that the real reason you’re dissatisfied with the President is because you’re a fringe, ideological, Leftist extremist ingrate who needs drug counseling …

Hold on a sec, I have to have my army of house servants bring me my next bong hit since I make so much money as a professional leftie whiner …

Matthew Yglesias says Gibbs needs to be drug tested himself.

Robert Borosage suggests Gibbs consider this.

The left isn’t the problem — the corporate wing of the party is. The left hasn’t gotten in the president’s way, for better or worse. It’s the corporate right of the party — the Blue Dogs and New Democrats — that have stood in the way. They joined with Republicans to weaken the recovery plan. Max Baucus did the dance with so-called moderate Republicans like Charles “death panel” Grassley that ate up the first year in useless negotiations. Blue dogs largely sabotaged energy legislation. New Democrats weakened already inadequate financial reforms. And the deficit hawks now sabotage needed jobs programs in an economy in big trouble. The problem with the left is that it has been too weak, not too strong.

Frankly, I suggest Gibbs consider this.

The New American Austerity

An interesting picture of the changing American consumer can be found in the post by Mike Mandel called “Where Americans are Spending More”. Conversely, it also shows where we are spending less. I compared some of my old budgets to my new ones and found that I’m not so far off the averages. The big consumption item these days is for telecommunications. Pets, Education, Childcare, and Health care expenditures are also on the rise. Some of these are undoubtedly due to bigger prices but they show that people are continuing to spend and not dropping their dollar commitments on some items.

Consumption cutbacks occur in areas like apparel. That’s actually not surprising because it’s cheaper than it used to be because all of the manufacturing has gone abroad to low cost labor country. Also, a lot wardrobe expenses aren’t a necessity for most people. The biggest drop in the list came from staying put. Less people are moving. Motor Vehicles also are on the big down list. That’s not surprising either since big consumer durables are the first to get hit in a recession and even the cash for clunkers can’t overcome that and a tough credit environment for ever. Sports and recreational vehicles have also lost some market power as well as video games and audio equipment. Again, not too much of a surprise because folks live with the old stuff longer during recession and tend to back off high end trips. Travel outside the U.S. has dropped too. My guess is that a lot on that list has to do with relative prices but I’m not a microeconomist so it’s just an educated guess.

Frankly, it looks like we’re engaged in a lot of nesting activity 0ther than jaunts to local restaurants for a night on the town. If you want to know what a typical American has spent money on for the last 30 years, look here. This study look at what folks have bought since Ronald Reagan was in office. It’s 30 years worth of folks keeping diaries on their household consumption.

Changes in the relative shares of average annual expenditures include:

• The shares of average annual expenditures allocated to food and to apparel and services declined over the 1984-2008 period. Food as a proportion of total expenditures decreased from 15.0 percent in 1984 to 12.8 percent in 2008, whereas apparel and services fell from 6.0 percent to 3.6 percent over the same period. See chart 1.
• Out-of-pocket healthcare spending rose from 4.8 percent of the total in 1984 to 5.9 percent in 2008. The increase in healthcare was driven by the increase in the health insurance subcomponent, which rose from 1.7 to 3.3 percent of total spending.
• The share of total spending represented by pensions and Social Security increased from 7.3 percent to 10.5 percent over the 1984 to 2008 period.
• Spending on shelter also rose over the 1984 to 2008 period, increasing from 15.9 percent of total spending to 20.2 percent. Shelter includes spending on owned homes, rental units, and vacation properties.

The shares allocated to vehicle purchases (net outlay) and to gasoline and motor oil fluctuated over the period. Vehicle purchases accounted for 8.3 percent of total spending in 1984, reached a high of 9.8 percent in 1986 and ended in a low of 5.5 percent in 2008, a recession year in which consumers sharply curtailed vehicle spending. The share allocated to gasoline and motor oil fluctuated between 2.9 and 5.7 percent of the total, largely due to fluctuating gas prices.

Here’s some of the items that seem to be on the rebound with the improving economic condition. These are easy categories for people who hate the devil in the details.

1) Investments in My Quality of Life (vacations, home improvement, dining out and home furnishings): There is no easy substitute for these items. Some tend to be more of an experience vs. a possession therefore they are more resilient: less likely to be cut back, and more poised for a rebound as people feel their financial situation improve.

2) Things I Don’t Think About: These include activities for children and subscription services such as cable TV/Internet and magazines. People are less likely to cut back on things that they need to “opt out” of, as opposed to purchase decisions they need to make every time they buy. They are also less likely to cut back on experiences (especially for/with their family) than things.

3) Things that Entertain Me: This category includes spending on video games, books and electronics. In the end, people still have time to fill. In many cases they are looking for more efficient ways to fill it: best balance of utility (i.e. fun) and price.

4) Guilty Pleasures: This category includes spending on items such as jewelry, designer clothes and shoes. Items seen as “frivolous” purchases—particularly those where consumers can’t rationalize a tangible value—face the most difficult road to rebound. This trend was consistent across income levels: even more wealthy people need better reasons to buy. However the aspiring affluent are particularly vulnerable, people with expensive tastes, but with incomes that aren’t large enough to be recession-proof.

Remember, Household spending accounts for about 67% of all GDP so any significant changes are bound to impact the economy. Recognize yourself in any of these patterns?