12 replies to this topic

[diogenes227]

In short, America's backbone is bending toward the breaking point. In the last decade, consumers overall cut spending 4.2% in 2010 dollars, and the brunt of that was felt by the middle class, which slashed spending between 10% and 13%. Meanwhile, the upper 20% of earners curbed spending only 6%. The blame can't be pinned on the recession, either. In real dollars, median family income is now what it was in 1997.

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[stocks]

Top Income in U.S. Is...Gasp!...Wash. D.C. Area

“There’s a gap that’s isolating Washington from the reality of the rest of the country,”.
“They just get more and more out of touch.”

Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show.

The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical household in the Washington metro area earning $84,523 last year. The national median income for 2010 was $50,046.

The figures demonstrate how the nation’s political and financial classes are prospering as the economy struggles with unemployment above 9 percent and thousands of Americans protest in the streets against income disparity, said Kevin Zeese, director of Prosperity Agenda, a Baltimore-based advocacy group trying to narrow the divide between rich and poor.

DC

[voltaire]

And I have been saying for a long time that the US risks a revolution based on income and wealth disparity. Yes, my requote of "let them eat cake", as per the French and other revolutions of the past might have been laughed at, but while a gap between rich and poor is a GOOD thing, it can't get so far out of proportion as to cause distress not only to the poor but to the rich by way of their security.

[Dex]

In short, America's backbone is bending toward the breaking point. In the last decade, consumers overall cut spending 4.2% in 2010 dollars, and the brunt of that was felt by the middle class, which slashed spending between 10% and 13%. Meanwhile, the upper 20% of earners curbed spending only 6%. The blame can't be pinned on the recession, either. In real dollars, median family income is now what it was in 1997.

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No one is talking about inflation also killing the middle class. I don't know how a young family feeds itself these days.

It is only going to get worse in the coming years as the USA is pressured by the international community to decrease its debt.


A national sales tax will be implemented in about 10-15 years by a democrat president - the only one who could get it passed without rioting.

Edited by Dex, 26 October 2011 - 07:10 AM.

[voltaire]

Dex The irony is that the US through the IMF and World Bank etc., forced Asian nations and USSR and Latin America in late 1990's to go for austerity. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the medicine doesn't taste so good. There were some who thought that recipe was bad back then. Austerity is a cure but a painful one. Obviously growth is best if it can be done without increassing indebtedness.

[stocks]

In real dollars, median family income is now what it was in 1997.

James Dines - Government’s Theft Forcing Violent End

Currencies are the lifeblood of the system. If the currency is corrupt then everything that currency touches is also corrupt. That’s what’s really bothering the world and this is why you are getting all of these riots in different places. It’s all part of the same phenomenon, it’s the currency. They don’t get that it’s one organic whole, one organic expression of the currency being embezzled by printing too much money.

One of the functions of money is storing value in it. Once you save money you have capital and that capital must be represented honestly. If they print ten percent more money overnight, they have literally stolen ten percent of your capital. It’s that stealing in the currencies that is eviscerating the world right now.

Twenty years ago in America, one bread winner could support a family....
“Now it takes two or more and they still can’t do it. That’s because the money, the governments are stealing it. This cannot end well.

All of these paper currencies have no intrinsic value and they are only as good as the government says they are. The currencies are like a bunch of staggering drunks, arm-linked and when one falls it's going to drag down the whole bunch.

theft

[traderx]

In short, America's backbone is bending toward the breaking point. In the last decade, consumers overall cut spending 4.2% in 2010 dollars, and the brunt of that was felt by the middle class, which slashed spending between 10% and 13%. Meanwhile, the upper 20% of earners curbed spending only 6%. The blame can't be pinned on the recession, either. In real dollars, median family income is now what it was in 1997.

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read the CBO report on the web-scary differences in income

[stocks]

The govt has looted us

Where is the peace dividend that was supposed to come after the end of the Cold War? Where are the fruits of the amazing gains in efficiency that technology has afforded? It has been eaten by the bureaucracy that manages our every move on this earth. The voracious and insatiable monster here is called the Federal Code that calls on thousands of agencies to exercise the police power to prevent us from living free lives.

It is as Bastiat said: the real cost of the state is the prosperity we do not see, the jobs that don't exist, the technologies to which we do not have access, the businesses that do not come into existence, and the bright future that is stolen from us. The state has looted us just as surely as a robber who enters our home at night and steals all that we love.

- William "Bill" Bonner

[stocks]

Household Income by Quintile

http://advisorperspe...s-mean-real.gif

Income Growth

http://advisorperspe...rowth-rates.gif

Edited by stocks, 29 April 2012 - 06:14 PM.

[stocks]

Jobs aren't coming back

... and we're less than a year away from the next recession

http://blogs.the-ame...aryJobChart.jpg