You are listening to an upstream sneak peek with Professor Richard Wolf. We're in New York and New York City and I am coming here because I'm looking at economics. I see economics everywhere so I was

noticing being in England and now here there are many more homeless people in

the street here than in London even or England in general and on the subway we had a young

African-American man selling something on the on the train as we go by

so the the symbols of economic crisis and inequality were really relevant to me.

However, this morning when I was speaking with the person we're staying with and I was talking

about the economic crisis and she said but haven't we recovered from the recession because the stock market is up and unemployment is relatively low so and it just it's interesting how we can see different realities.

So I'm wondering from your your perspective do you see us as having recovered and if not what would be your response to someone?

Yeah, we haven't recovered, not even close.

This is a game in which more and more the political life life of this country and unfortunately the ideological

and academic life is a kind of screaming your preferred image of the world at one another. So if you want the news to be good

you insist it is. And if you want the news to be bad you insist it isn't. And the

winner of this absurd game is whoever has the most megaphones and can yell the loudest.

So let me give you some ideas. Your host is right. stock market is up, and unemployment is down.

And that's very nice, and who can object?

But it really has nothing to do with anything once you understand what those

words mean. For example, the unemployment. In the United States unemployment is measured in a very specific way.

The government, the Labor Department, literally inquires of a vast number of people,

it's a kind of questionnaire system.

Ask them the following question.

Are you working?

If you answer yes, you're counted as an employed person.

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