The U.S. economy is not behaving as it should, at least from a historical perspective. Analysts are struggling to determine why, nearly two years into a technical "recovery", the U.S. economy is failing to add jobs that are necessary to ensure an economic rebound. Normally, this far into a recovery period, the nation would be adding significantly more jobs that it has for the past few months. In June, U.S. employers added a mere 18,000 jobs. To put that number in perspective, most economists predicted the U.S. would add 90,000 jobs - and the country would need to add 300,000 jobs per month to make a meaningful dent in unemployment.Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently stated that many Americans are in for a long and difficult road to economic recovery. He basically stated that the U.S. has already played all of the cards in its deck and it has been unable to move the needle toward a sustainable recovery. And as debt ceiling and deficit-reduction talks stall in Washington, it's becoming pretty apparent that the U.S. is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Ironically, this means that Congress and the White House will "probably" agree on a debt ceiling increase with little or no meaningful progress on reining in the nation's runaway debts.
With economies in Europe and Asia already under tremendous stress, it's hard to really guess what the long-term aim of the U.S. is - or should be. It seems evident that global powers are intent on continuing to "kick the can" on spiraling debt and doomsday default scenarios around the world. Ultimately, doing so may be in the best interest of the United States. Even if putting off meaningful changes to the global economic system ensures an eventual catastrophic global meltdown, it's probably advantageous for the U.S. to be among the last to fall. The deeper the global economic problems become, the more necessary it becomes to ensure that the U.S. - and its consumption-based economy - is in a position to lead the world back out of it.
