Friday, April 1, 2011

MORRISTOWN, NJ (Expansionary News Service) April 1, 2010.  While Wall. St. investors, administration officials, and media talking heads celebrate the creation of 216, 000 new jobs in March, economic storm clouds are gathering. The workforce is shrinking, inflation is gathering momentum, wages are shrinking, and state and local governments are facing bankruptcy.

According to noted futurist/sociologist Dr. Michael G.Zey, author of Ageless Nation and The Future Factor, much of the U.S. economy is still mired in recession.

• Although we have added some jobs, the actual number of non-farm workers on payroll has shrunk from 132,500,000 in 2001 to 130,738,000 in 2011. This shrinkage of almost 2 million workers occurred while the U.S. population grew by almost 10% to its current 311 million.

• The Gallup organization reports that U.S. unemployment has been rising since November, 2010, and stands now at 10%, not 8.8% as the Labor Dept. claims. Total unemployment, which includes discouraged workers the government no longer counts in its statistics, is now at 20.3%.

• States and cities are facing bankruptcy. Expect significant layoffs of government workers as Federal stimulus money dries up by this summer.

• The stock market rise in August 2010 to the present began on rumors of the QE2 operation, the Fed's creation of over $600 billion dollars of new money. Once the Fed turns off the money-printing machine, expect the bull market to end.

• The rising cost of oil has always preceded a recession. Expect the same now, as oil jumped from $80 to $108 over the last few months. The price at the pump is already over $4.00 a gallon in parts of the country. Construction spending is the worst in 11 years, and manufacturing has cooled off considerably. Blame energy and material costs.

Dr. Zey contends that these developments signal more economic hard times. "Wages on average are actually going down, as they have for the last several years." states Zey.  "Now that inflation is gaining steam, expect the vast majority of people to feel poorer than they did just a few years ago." Walmart warned that their customers can expect higher prices.

The price of housing is the only item moving down significantly, and this decline affects the net worth of millions of Americans.

In his forthcoming book on the U.S. future, Michael Zey outlines the steps necessary to revitalize the American economy, including restoring the manufacturing base, significantly expanding our domestic energy production, and restarting the US space program. He also has some intriguing ideas about the role that the expansion of human potential will play in future economic growth.

"We must start taking these steps now," say Dr. Zey "Or Americans will be permanently trapped in the new normal of high unemployment, shrinking wages, and a declining standard of living. "



About Michael G. Zey

Dr. Michael G Zey is the author of "Ageless Nation" (New Horizons/Kensington), "The Future Factor" (Transaction Publishers; McGraw-Hill hard cover), "Seizing the Future: The Dawn of the Macroindustrial Era" (Simon and Schuster, hardcover; Transaction Publishers/ Paperback) and "The Mentor Connection."

He consults in the areas of formal mentor programs, future trends, technology development, career issues, and leadership development for Fortune 500 companies and government, including AT&T, Nabisco (all divisions), Kaiser Associates, Warner Lambert, Hoechst-Celanese, United Technologies, the New York State Governor's Office of Employee Relations.

Dr. Michael Zey's controversial and original views on social and techno-trends have appeared in the LA Times, Providence (RI) Journal, Boston Globe, Worth, the Christian Science Monitor, Entrepreneur, the Sacramento Bee, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), La Liberation (Paris), Prosper, Flair and Il Sole/24Ore (Italy) The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, ABCnews.com, Radio Free Europe, La Monde, and XMSatellite''s USAToday/Newstalk station, NJ Business, as well as on WABC's "Batchelor and Alexander Show", AT&T's "Tech TV" and "The Bill Cunningham Show", as well as many NPR programs. He has been interviewed for The Wall Street Journal Report, CNBC, CNN, The Turning Point, and the Brazilian Globotv network program "Jornal Nacional". He has been an invited guest on FoxNews, PBS's Nightly Business Report, and ABC's 20/20. His views on human enhancement technologies appear on the website of the Discovery Channel, www.discovery.com.

He is a  contributor to KNX-AM, the Los-Angeles news affiliate of CBS, and is the National Future Trends analyst at Examiner.com.

Michael Zey serves as Executive Director of the Expansionary Institute (www.zey.com), is a Professor at Montclair State University, NJ and consults to corporations and government agencies.

Source: Expansionary News Service, Morristown, NJ.)

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