It’s called a jobless recovery. Businesses can’t even think about expanding because of Obama’s promise of higher taxes down the road. There goes hiring.
Moreover, the only way they can grow profits in this environment is to cut costs, which means firing marginal or less experienced workers or staff involved in development of new products and market, etc.
You’re exactly right, and it doesn’t bode well for the concept of middle-class prosperity. For the moment, companies are putting up impressive EPS numbers even though their revs have been crushed, because a whole lot of workers just aren’t there any more; plus the sales that were in the pipeline appear to be measured against a much smaller workforce, so as I said, it looks like giant productivity gains have occurred. I for one don’t see the sutainability and I cannot see how the consumer is going to do anything but retrench. But for now, we party, apparently.