As an economist, I would disagree that the American economy has improved. Your labor participation rate as of this moment is 62.8%, which matches the worst days of the Carter presidency. And looking at the current GDP numbers for the past two quarters (Q1 was revised to -.4%) it appears that America may very well be in recession again at this very moment. The current "recovery" was at first labeled the "jobless recovery", now it may be relabled as the "recoveryless recovery". Current asset prices are high as a result of QE, and almost nil interest rates, as companies have borrowed the money printed by the fed to buy back stocks and pump up their prices. But if you subtract these paper profits from their balance sheets, companies are not doing so well, certainly not well enough to hire or raise wages. Worse yet, the fundamentals driving current stock prices are all to similar to those which fueled the housing bubble and collapse just a few short years ago.


Gas was under $1 per gallon in 1998, what is the current price? As of today it is $2.74 per gallon; even accounting for inflation, the difference is over 100%, which is as far from being a record as New York is far from Tokyo.

I am not trying to be argumentative here (however much I love a good argument), but the first step in solving a problem is to admit that a problem exists.