Where the jobs at?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is up for confirmation to a second 4-year term right now, giving Congress the chance to ask some tough questions of him and to assess his job performance over the past 3 years. While one might imagine that a reputed "expert on the Great Depression" would be eager to spur job creation in the United States to help out the little guys, how disappointed would you be to find out you're dead wrong in that assumption? Not only is Bernanke not interested in using the substantial monetary might of the Fed to stimulate job creation, but his concern over the US' long-run deficit is such that he now is signaling to Congress that the members ought to consider cutting Social Security and Medicare. Let's think about this for a minute. The elderly who may have been fortunate enough to have 401ks have presumably had those savings wiped out in this financial crisis, and now Bernanke wants to cut those entitlements they've earned through years of hard work during their lives? For those who never had investments on the stock market, and are solely reliant upon Social Security and Medicare, reducing their benefits would have devastating effects. This is fair how?

Bernanke worked to assure the committee he had nothing against old people. "I'm not in any way advocating unfair treatment of the elderly, who have worked all their lives and certainly deserve our support and help, but if there are ways to restructure or strengthen these programs that reduce costs, I think that's extraordinarily important for us to try to achieve," he said.

So for those of us who have been working and contributing to Social Security for our own future someday, we're just supposed to sit back and take another cutback, all in the name of long-term fiscal "responsibility?" If there's ever an appropriate time for kicking the can down the road on an issue, now is that time when it comes to Social Security, as it is the backstop for a lot of people who are suffering these days. Social Security and Medicare are two of what economists call "automatic stabilizers" that "dampen fluctuations in real GDP without any explicit policy action by the government." What all that means is that the stabilizers kick in during recessions to help people (i.e. welfare or unemployment benefits) and taper off during better times (more people are employed, so fewer people receive unemployment). These stabilizers help to keep recessions from getting too bad because they funnel money to people who need it and thereby increase spending (keeping GDP, and hence, the economy as a whole up more than it would be without them). So yeah, let's just cut, cut, cut away!

Thankfully, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is on the case:

Sanders said he sees it for what it is. "That's the solution? To cut back on the middle class and the elderly? That only adds fuel to the fire," he said. "Look, let's be clear. The middle class in America today is collapsing. Within the confines of the Beltway, we don't talk about that too much. But that is the reality. It's not just unemployment or underemployment. People are working longer hours for lower wages. People are unable to send their kids to college. People are losing their homes. People's jobs are going to China. That is the reality."

Hmm, there seems to be a common theme of the middle class being under assault these days. What kind of future can we Millenials expect to have if the social safety net on which our society has relied for the past 60 years is being cut out from under us, string by string?