Iowa’s seen hundreds of jobs lost in the past week, while some analysts predict two-million jobs will be eliminated nationwide this year. Some 55,000 workers across the country were laid off on Monday alone.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss uses the analogy that a rose bush has to be pruned in order to grow and flourish. Goss says, "In a recession, companies can resize, companies can reshape what they’re doing and get more lean and mean." He says there’s no easy way out of this situation and the government has already done everything it can to stimulate the economy.
Goss says it’s a guessing game as what to do next, adding, not even the new Treasury Secretary has the magic answer. "If you as Mr. Geithner, who was just confirmed, what is the plan, I don’t think he could give a coherent good answer to that and that’s very troubling," Goss says.
He’s skeptical about the proposed $819-billion economic stimulus plan which passed the House this week and heads next to the Senate, where the proposal is billions larger.
A report this week shows Iowa’s unemployment rate for December rose to four-point-six percent, an increase of three-tenths of a point from November. That’s still well below the U.S. jobless rate of seven-point-two percent. Goss says high unemployment isn’t new news.
"This is not the worst economy of all time," he says. "Seven-point-two percent is nothing like as high as it was back in the early 80’s."
Goss remains confident the market will correct the problem itself and that another Congressional attempt at a massive bailout won’t work. He says, "Throwing a lot of money at anything during a short period of time to revive the economy will produce a lot of problems and a lot of waste." Goss says it’s ironic people defaulting on mortgages started the recession while low mortgage rates will play a role in helping the economy to recover.