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Guest Post: 16 Signs That The Middle Class Is Running Out Of Money
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
Is "discretionary income" rapidly becoming a thing of the past for most American families? Right now, there are a lot of signs that we are on the verge of a nightmarish consumer spending drought. Incomes are down, taxes are up, many large retail chains are deeply struggling because of the lack of customers, and at this point nearly a quarter of all Americans have more credit card debt than money in the bank. Considering the fact that consumer spending is such a large percentage of the U.S. economy, that is very bad news. How will we ever have a sustained economic recovery if consumers don't have much money to spend? Well, the truth is that we aren't ever going to have a sustained economic recovery. In fact, this debt-fueled bubble of false hope that we are experiencing right now is as good as things are going to get. Things are going to go downhill from here, and if you think that consumer spending is bad now, just wait until you see what happens over the next several years.
Even though the Dow is surging toward a record high right now, everyone knows that things are not good for the middle class. A recent quote from CPA Howard Dvorkin kind of summarizes our current state of affairs very nicely...
"The fact of the matter is that America is broke — whether it's mortgages, student loans or credit cards, we are broke. The old rule of thumb is that people should have six months' of savings," Dvorkin says."If you talk to people, most don't have two pennies."
These days most Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck, and thanks to rising prices and rising taxes, those paychecks are getting squeezed tighter and tighter. Many families have had to cut back on unnecessary expenses, and some families no longer have any discretionary income at all.
The following are 16 signs that the middle class is rapidly running out of money...
#1 According to one brand new survey, 24 percent of all Americans have more credit card debt than money in the bank.
#2 J.C. Penney was once an unstoppable retail powerhouse, but now J.C. Penney has just posted its lowest annual retail sales in more than 20 years...
J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) slid the most in more than three decades after the department-store chain lost $4.3 billion in sales in the first year of Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson’s turnaround plan.
The shares fell 18 percent to $17.40 at 11:28 a.m. in New York after earlier declining 22 percent, the biggest intraday drop since at least 1980, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. J.C. Penney yesterday said its net loss in the quarter ended Feb. 2 widened to $552 million from $87 million a year earlier. The Plano, Texas-based retailer’s annual revenue slid 25 percent to $13 billion, the lowest since at least 1987.
How much worse can things get? At this point the decline has become so steep for J.C. Penney that Jim Cramer of CNBC is declaring that they are in "a true tailspin".
#3 In the United States today, a new car has become out of reach for most middle class Americans according to the 2013 Car Affordability Study...
Looking to buy a new car, truck or crossover? You may find it more difficult to stretch the household budget than you expected, according to a new study that finds median-income families in only one major U.S. city actually can afford the typical new vehicle.
The typical new vehicle is now more expensive than ever, averaging $30,500 in 2012, according to TrueCar.com data, and heading up again as makers curb the incentives that helped make their products more affordable during the recession when they were desperate for sales. According to the 2013 Car Affordability Study by Interest.com, only in Washington could the typical household swing the payments, the median income there running $86,680 a year.
#4 The founder of Subway Restaurants, Fred Deluca, says that the recent tax increases are having a noticeable impact on his business...
"The payroll tax is affecting sales. It's causing sales declines," he said, estimating a decline of about 2 percentage points off sales at his restaurants. "There are a lot of pressures on consumers," Deluca said, adding "I think this is on the permanent side, but I think business will adjust to it."
#5 Many other large restaurant chains are also struggling in this tough economic environment...
Darden Restaurants, which owns the casual dining chains Oliver Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and Red Lobster, said blended same-store sales at its three eateries would be 4.5 percent lower during its fiscal third quarter.
Clarence Otis, Darden's chairman and chief executive, said that "while results midway through the third quarter were encouraging, there were difficult macro-economic headwinds during the last month of the quarter."
"Two of the most prominent were increased payroll taxes and rising gasoline prices, which together put meaningful pressure on the discretionary purchasing power of our guests," he added.
#6 The CFO of Family Dollar recently admitted to CNBC that this is a "challenging time" because of reduced consumer spending...
At Family Dollar where the average customer makes less than $40,000 a year, the combination of a two-percent hike in the payroll tax, rising gas prices and delayed tax refunds has created a "challenging time and an uncertain time for the consumer right now," said Mary Winston, the company's chief financial officer.
"In our case, anything that takes money out of our customer's wallet gives them less money to spend in our stores," she told CNBC. "So I think all of those things create nervousness for the consumer, and I think there are sometimes political dynamics going on that they might not even fully understand the details, but they know it's not good."
#7 Even Wal-Mart is really struggling right now. According to a recent Bloomberg article, Wal-Mart is struggling "to restock store shelves as U.S. sales slump"...
Evelin Cruz, a department manager at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Pico Rivera, California, said Simon’s comments from the officers’ meeting were “dead on.”
“There are gaps where merchandise is missing,” Cruz said in a telephone interview. “We are not talking about a couple of empty shelves. This is throughout the store in every store. Some places look like they’re going out of business.”
This all comes on the heels of an internal Wal-Mart memo that was leaked to the press earlier this month that described February sales as a "total disaster".
#8 Electronics retailer Best Buy continues to struggle mightily. Best Buy just announced that it will be eliminating 400 jobs at its headquarters in Richfield, Minnesota.
#9 It is being projected that many of the largest retail chains in America, including Best Buy, will close down hundreds of stores during 2013. The following is a list of projected store closings for 2013 that I included in a previous article...
Best Buy
Forecast store closings: 200 to 250
Sears Holding Corp.
Forecast store closings: Kmart 175 to 225, Sears 100 to 125
J.C. Penney
Forecast store closings: 300 to 350
Office Depot
Forecast store closings: 125 to 150
Barnes & Noble
Forecast store closings: 190 to 240, per company comments
Gamestop
Forecast store closings: 500 to 600
OfficeMax
Forecast store closings: 150 to 175
RadioShack
Forecast store closings: 450 to 550
#10 Another sign that consumer spending is slowing down is the fact that less stuff is being moved around in our economy. As I have mentioned previously, freight shipment volumes have hit their lowest level in two years, and freight expenditures have gone negative for the first time since the last recession.
#11 Many young adults have no discretionary income to spend because they are absolutely drowning in student loan debt. According to the New York Federal Reserve, student loan debt nearly tripled between 2004 and 2012.
#12 The student loan delinquency rate in the United States is now at an all-time high. It is only a matter of time before the student loan debt bubble bursts.
#13 Due to a lack of jobs and high levels of debt, poverty among young adults in America is absolutely exploding. Today, U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
#14 According to one recent survey, 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.
#15 Median household income in the United States has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by more than $4000 during that time span.
#16 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the middle class is currently taking home a smaller share of the overall income pie than has ever been recorded before.
Are you starting to get the picture?
Retailers are desperate for sales, but you can't squeeze blood out of a rock.
For much more on how the middle class is absolutely drowning in debt, please see this article: "Money Is A Form Of Social Control And Most Americans Are Debt Slaves".
But if you listen to the mainstream media, they would have you believe that happy days are here again.
Right now, everyone seems to be quite giddy about the fact that the Dow is marching toward an all-time high. And I actually do believe that the Dow will blow right past it. In fact, it is even possible that we could see the Dow hit 15,000 before everything starts falling apart.
But at some point, the financial markets will catch up with economic reality. It is just a matter of time.
In the meanwhile, those that are wise are taking advantage of these times of plenty to prepare for the great economic drought that is coming.
Don't be caught living paycheck to paycheck and totally unprepared when the next wave of the economic collapse strikes. Anyone that believes that this debt-fueled bubble of false hope can last indefinitely is just being delusional.
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Where are the Indian land to distribute?
The 'american' way of building an 'american' middle class is theft by their government state and redistribution to part of the citizenry.
Where are those Indian lands to distribute?
'American' elite have stolen the world so that their 'american' middle class feels entitled.
A way to help that elite would be to point to them where the so sadly needed Indian lands are.
At the moment, the 'american' elite is lost and has figured out no other way but to sacrifice part of the 'american'middle class.
The elite might welcome some constructive contributions.
Where are the Tibetan lands to distribute?
The Communist 'chinese' citizenism way of building a Communist 'chinese' citizenism middle class is theft by their government state and redistribution to part of the citizenry.
Where are those Tibetan 'foreign devil' lands to distribute?
Communist 'chinese' citizenism elite have stolen the world so that their Communist 'chinese' citizenism middle class feels entitled.
A way to help that elite would be to point to them where the so sadly needed Tibetan 'foreign devil' lands are.
(No need to try to point out the Tibetan 'foreign devils', as they are being culturally genocided into extinction.)
At the moment, the Communist 'chinese' citizenism elite is lost and has figured out no other way but to sacrifice part of the Communist 'chinese' citizenism middle class to being exiled in toxificated, environmentally degradationalized cancer villages:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23212-china-takes-steps-to-clean-u...
The elite might welcome some constructive nightsoil contributions to the Communist 'chinese' citizenism roadsides. It is the doody of every Communist 'chinese' citizenism citizen.
@AnAnonymous ~ You're playing from a PLAYBOOK that doesn't exist...
~~~
You're talking about LAND [which isn't the same thing as MONEY or POWER unless you're talking about territorial ground wars on ancient battlefields]...
America IS & always has been OWNED by the European Elite... The Indians were a fly to swat [a reference that I'm not depicting casually or immorally in any way, but that's the way it goes]...
We could go on all night about the nuances of the various territorial annexations & purchases, but they all have roughly the same element behind them... The LOUISIANA PURCHASE [which was one of the largest], was an exemplary case...
Both Napoleon & the English were being funded by the same entities... The "sale" of the Louisiana Territory was a run of the mill MONETIZATION [for the purpose of re-payment of debt ~ which essentially meant NOTHING MORE than the concept that the same entities that, by result, would procure their debt satisfaction from the re-payment, would subsequently send agents INTO the same undeveloped lands & create more DEBT BASED commercial activity]...
America IS & always has been OWNED by the European Elite...
__________________
Yeah, the King did the stealing.
Dont believe the books, the thirteen colonies and stuff, The King owned all 'america'. He stole it by himself. Check his agenda. If you do your homework, you'll see two vacant days. This is when it did the stealing job.
Yeah, AnAnonymous did the insanitationalizing.
Dont believe the books, actual history and stuff, AnAnonymous owns all 'chinese' hypocritizenizing. He blobbed-up dishonesty and wholesale rewriting of facts and history by himself. Check his kneejerk anti-American agenda. If you do your homework, you'll see his projectionism and scapegoattery of his mythical 'US Citizenism' even into 15th century Easter Island. This is when his mind did the stealing of honesty and sanity job.
@AnAnonymous ~ It didn't take you long to put your ignorance on display...
~~~
'THE KING' does not [or DID NOT] = the European Elite...
The 'House of Hanover', 'House of Windsor', or even, [moving onto the continent] 'Bourbon' or even 'Romanov' tell you who is [or was] steering the ship... To have to look deeper...
"'THE KING' does not [or DID NOT] = the European Elite...
The 'House of Hanover', 'House of Windsor', or even, [moving onto the continent] 'Bourbon' or even 'Romanov' tell you who is [or was] steering the ship... To have to look deeper..."
And that is not even getting paper-cut close to the esoteric side of the we what and why's all that happens, happens.
"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know."
Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld - February 12, 2002 Press Briefing
A curious press reporter should have asked, excuse me Mr. Rumsfeld, could you say that thirty times with a mouth full of pop-corn please?
But then, the crowd might have needed to be stretchered out from the sheer overexertion and near-death experiences of raucous laughter.
smirk of satisfaction from f_s... Sadly ~ the rest will fall on deaf ears...
I read on some tin-foil site or another that all American land of value, i.e. National Parks, has been pledged along with all the Fed acquired mortgages to China in return for them hanging on to our debt.
Go FUCK yourself.
.
The problem in fighting back is the ill informed masses. Without them Americans do not stand a chance.
They are being taken care enough to keep them subdued for a revolt.
Ever since, I can remember the US was on an "inflate or die" path. Now we have reached the hockey stick point were the exponents are geometric and it's a matter of short time that the line goes vertical. (Vertigo time?)
That's actually a good motto. let's start using it.
First to feel that VERTIGO will be Bernanke
Good Post. There are many problems for the "elitist". They always live in fear. They know that even though they build monuments to themselves and praise themselves, most people quietly despise them and know there are many who would love to have a chance to eliminate them. They substitute privilege for meaningful work, which tends not to be fulfilling and developmental... if enhances their feeling of "unwellness".
We live in a world that is much more complex (and yet if we understood it well, maybe simple) than we are led to believe through the fairytale history and the propagandist lies the elitists tell us. There is power on earth. There is knowledge on earth. It has been here for a very long time and it transcends the current crop of elitist sewer dwellers. No technology we implement is new. Ancient communications document it all ... and more. It is just rediscovered and implemented as "they" have the need, resources and technological support systems.
There will come a time where we have a technological and ideological clash with those who came before us. Maybe it is happening now and maybe those who came before are the guiding hand of the elitists (which would also mean that they are slime as well ... so the worst aspects of Satan lives?). Maybe that more than anything will cause them to take more drastic action than releasing an annual flu or plague... or create a war to funnel our aggressions and humanity.
I wonder if we will ever be "allowed" to shake ourselves of the parasites... and thereby shake ourselves of the perverting influence that rules this world.
"I wonder if we will ever be "allowed" to shake ourselves of the parasites... and thereby shake ourselves of the perverting influence that rules this world"
~~~
I don't think we ever can or will [solely in a sense that that 'parasitic' element will always be there doing what they do]... Anyway ~ that's not the bother... When you grasp the idea that REJECTION = FREEDOM, you've lived a full life...
Freedom is an idea... Whether or not you 'sadly' or 'gleefully' go about & undertake the process... YOU ARE NOT YOUR KHAKIS...
At the time of the Russian Revolution, Russia had effectively no middle class. The kulaks were not middle-class in any but the most pedantic political definition. They were useful as class-enemies - they were already resented by the peasantry when the Bolsheviks hit the scene; perfect scapegoats, it's that simple.
In the meantime Bernanke and the banksters print like madmen and trash the US dollar. The muppets see higher and higher food prices along with other commodities.
Once people around the world rush out of the US dollar the Federal Rserve's Ponizi game is realized and the muppets get the royal squeeze to starvation.
'Americans' have put the planet on the path of depletion of resources.
Following this, printing or not printing, the prices would go through the roof.
Actually, the capacity to print ensures 'americans' have the lion's share of the consumption of the remaining resources.
A path which the rapaciously resource blobbing-up Chinese Communists have not only willingly pursued, but expanded upon with much vigour.
'Americans' have put the planet on the path of depletion of resources. Following this, printing or not printing, the prices would go through the roof."
Is that the 1 billion Chinese-Americans or the 1 billion Indian-Americans? Because 1 billion of one of those slash-Americans will eat 1 billion lbs of carbohydrates a day just to survive, thank you American farmers.
Now shut the fuck up or start eating iPads.
Depleted comment, -1 awarded.
@AnAnonymous
70% of the planet's resources currently for one nation. Although I'm sceptical of that idea over the last five years.
Might be 68.9% now. Either way a population reduction by 90% of a single country could alleviate nearly 60% of planetary resources. A good similar historical example is the black death, either accidental or planned.
Europe was absurdly over populated and the economies were not in good shape. Plague shows up. Wipes out half the population. Resources are freed up to start the renaissance along with all the inheritance money floating around to fund it. If you are white, you are here today because most of your ancestors were culled.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/economy.html
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Routt.Black.Death
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/17
I didn't realize that China's share of world resource consumptionalizing had reached quite as high as 70%.
Ah, but that's commies for you --- they sneak up on you when you least expect them.
That would be the USA that consumes on mass. Not China. They pull at a project like taffy.
The Chinese are long term planners...or were long term planners, once. Now they are stuck like everyone else. 100 year projects were not uncommon. What has crippled China in every capacity is over population as it has done to India as well. It's very simple metric. If you import food as a country, around 10%, then it means you are over populated regardless of masked productivity.
For the US, Beef is a good example. For 30 years the US agricultural industry has been cutting down south america for it and the herds that are managed. At this point in time it's non-sequitor to point out it's just the US. Brazil itself has a problem as well. Same people raising the cattle for export are now in the trap of export or keep for the local growing population.
There are so many varibles in play it blows the mind to consider the connections.
I doubt America consumes 70% these days. China has been using a tremendous amount internally. And hey, if you turn your farmlands into industrial wastelands and urban sprawl, that doesn't help with the food situation either.
http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2012-10/daily-infographic-if-e...
An interesting break down of consumption. Keep in mind the gains that can be had by removing the largest consumers from the deck. The net benefit is same level of technology and quality with a smaller foot print to entend development to counter current issues.
The energy required to support 300 million people is significantly less than the needs of 7.2 billion and maintains a genetic diversity to avoid the historical human secret weapon of inbreeding. This situation right now has to do with numbers, geometric ones that nobody on this planet can afford.
So, what you're saying is, if we kill off ~6 Billion people, those of us who survive can afford to continuously live like the United Arab Emirates ... Interesting.
As far as consumption, 20 percent of the energy going to America is more inline with the kind of consumption numbers I expect.
As for China, they chose, as part of Mao's "how to win a global nuclear war" strategy, to have so many people. Comparing living standards versus total population is not a good measure, since different cultures just choose to use resources differently; have 6 kids, or have 2 kids and send them to college.
It's all numbers. Too many hands and not enough resources.
I couldn't begin to offer the same level of clarity without it sound like a guy on a street corner with an the end is nigh sign on. This is how the numbers work against everyone on the planet that Chris Martenson does. I can promise that you'll stop and rewind more than once.
http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse
"--they sneak up on you when you least expect them."
http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1999/nov99/psrnov99.html
Got google earth real time to see this area now?
Define your terms. Over-populated relative to what? Your own esoterically derived magic number, or something less silly, like contemporary agricultural production and energy exploitation capability? In the case of the latter, you'd better be careful not to conflate cause and effect. What may have been sustainable prior to the catastrophe ... didn't remain so during it, or resume for some time after it.
And to imply that the Renaissance's prime causative agent was the Black Death is specious at best. A necessary condition? Maybe. Sufficient? Not a chance.
What was Europe doing before hand? Nothing. Tribal wars and forgettable skirmishes. The level of technology was Rock and Iron. Sticks were investments (see Tallysticks). Economies were wrecked from endless battles of honour among inbred twits with no describable ability to use numbers properly. That was Europe before the Plague. After Plague. The Renaissance and one of the first thing that was studied on was medicine/chemistry/metalurgy to attempt avoiding a repeat. The Plague killed a lot of people (still does).
The severity of the plague outbreaks were because the lack of nutrition from shortages which weaken immune system responses, it also in turn sped up the spread of the disease in a weird assed feedback loop.
Today though, I wouldn't worry about the Plague. CDC keeps failing to securely store weaponized anthrax. How could that possibly be? They have a fortress and well trained and armed/armoured soldiers to keep this shit under a tight lid. Best case to store weaponized anthrax is 'never'. Yet this exists...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284546/Labs-CDC-store-anthrax-plague-REPEATEDLY-failed-security-checks.html
News articles like this aren't publicly published without a reason.
. . . and then there are those pesky genius bio-scientists, tinkering with pandemics, just because. . . they can.
and Dr. Fouchier, he's got a CV worth noting:
gaze into his eyes, and see the future. it's only a matter of when.
Tally Sticks: the original Crypto-currency, precursor to Bitcoin. Worked for centuries, until someone convinced the King paper money was better.
EDIT: and weaponized Anthrax ain't no thang. The Soviets accidentally weaponized Anthrax all over the place in a city of ~1.2 million people, and only ~105 died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak
This chart has merit. The middle class loves "shopping malls" NOT. 3 month chart. winning< The middle class is tapped out!
Dont need money...
IN A SPEECH LAST NIGHT...The central bank’s low-rate policies are intended to encourage borrowing and spending to boost the economy. Higher rates would make borrowing more expensive.
THERE YOU HAVE IT!!
THE BANKERS CREED! THEIR MISSION STATEMENT!! THE WHOLE MODEL OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE FIAT FRACTIONAL CORRUPT IRRATIONAL DELUSIONAL MONEY SYSTEM
GET PEOPLE TO WILLINGLY BECOME DEBT SLAVES IN PURSUIT OF MINDLESS CONSUMPTION!!
FAIL
'growth' is a jew word for 'debt'
I've got a solution. Let's sign some more free-trade agreements.
Nixon helped out with that. The Chinese are our friends- hey who stole my account numbers?
Mhhh it's a little too ealry to make such bold statemens. Let's wait for Q2 Numbers before i go back into my bunker ;o)
But I cannot believe the government is doing nothing and is just watching how the whole economy collapses and the people get poorer and lose their homes and jobs.
This shit is not funny anymore. It can hit everyone. So don't be so sure about yourself and your life, in one year you could also be on foodstamps.
Sure, ...it doesn't have anything to do with their idiotic spending habits pre-2008, or signing morts they couldn't afford, or driving vehicles that burn more of an expensive commodity than necessary, or the fact that median incomes have been stagant for decades.
Not everybody ... been in graduate school for a decade, earned a Master's & working on a Ph.D. Lived below the poverty line (for a family of four) the whole time; worked extra jobs on the side, some support from relatives, cut back. I went back to school in August 2003, haven't had a big mortgage (or a big house) since before then.
I'm not living paycheck to paycheck, although it's close; the tax refund and the Christmas gifts (if any) are big around my place. But I'm getting out soon, one way or another, and have to compete in a world that's a little different than when I went in:
- Lots of layoffs, cutbacks, jobs gone forever: unemployment 8% (gov't.) or 23% (Shadowstats, which I trust much more)
- Lots of folks giving up, can't find a job, living on welfare, unemployment, dwindling savings, whatever.
- Multimillion $ bonuses for bankers, politicians, and those connected
- More regulations, laws, agencies: fewer entrepreneurs, businesses, workers
My cars are both over ten years old; be a while before I can replace them. My income has gone DOWN for the last decade, and down within that from last year to this (two years to last year, based on tax years). I don't see it getting better for a while, if ever; we need less government, fewer fed workers, more industry. Policies which don't encourage this won't help.
Dont worry, the NEO-CONS got ur back..........'Syrian rebels to get $60 million USD'
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-02-28/us/37351374_1_syr...
They should give it to responsible folks like the Callifornia Pension Fund.
Yeah, Kerry scrounges around under the seat cushions at the State Department and comes up with sixty million for Syrian bandaids...meanwhile the Obama sychophantic media is running around screeching about teachers, firefighters, cops, and having to close down the national parks...gotta lay off those "first responding" janitors that clean the bathrooms dontcha know.
Sometimes I could just fucking scream.
Where did kazar kerry find 60 mil$?
Skeeter said we were all gonna die because of the suckquester.
'Syrian rebels to get $60 million USD'
John kerry=WAR!
This inside mr ssri drugs ringer was brought in for the final solution plan of babylon's god money, and to profit and plunder from the last world war.
http://minx.cc/?post=323707
You decided to have kids when you couldn't actually afford them. You decided to take on debt rather than join/stay in the workforce.
I'm completely in the black, and have been since I paid off my student loans (before graduating!). I didn't bother with a Masters or PHd because I saw that as ego-stroking and that I would learn more in industry than writing papers or teaching labs. My income has gone up every year since 1995 through raises or switching jobs because I have skills that cannot be off-shored or replicated without years of on-the-job experience.
If you want "more industry", you'll need more customers; the belief that taxes are preventing jobs from being created (rather than merely preventing profits from being pocketed) is a tried and true conceit, but jobs are created when demand outstrips production and never before. You got the right problem, but the wrong analysis as to the cause.
What's your skill set since graduating in 1995?
Started out working in software on compilers and translators (still useful to this day), but have learned how to program on several different computer architectures, including drivers for custom electronics, and become an expert on low-level optimization and performance. I've done networking code, multimedia codecs, and worked in the game industry at Blizzard for years before I got tired of "The OC". I've always spent a great deal of time outside of work acquiring new skills. These days I work on computer graphics because it's what I find interesting.
Good stuff to know because most people cannot do the low-leveland proformance optimization stuff. I recall going on one speciality web site with programmers for essentially hedge funds, HFT, Algos. I think it is actually a traders web site. Some guy was posting a job for low-level stuff to try to speed up their hedge fund system.
The posters on the site were hassling him because he was offering $150 K or so. They said that he was gonna get hacks for that price. They said - get back to us when you are over $220K.
I wouldn't for those assholes for anything less than half a mil.
"You decided to have kids when you couldn't actually afford them." Wrong, I had my kids back when I was working in industry - the last year I was employed full-time in industry (2001) I broke $90k.
"You decided to take on debt rather than join/stay in the workforce." Wrong again - I have no student loans, I'm 50% LTV on my mortgage (it made more sense than renting - rents are sky-high here) and I could sell assets to pay off the credit card balance, it just doesn't make sense yet. Graduate students in engineering sometimes get a stipend, meant to support a young single student, not a family.
I was laid off in 2001, when some suit decided a recession was coming and the smart thing to do was lay off 8% of the salaried workforce. It wasn't my first choice at the time! (Just before Christmas, happy holidays!)
"I didn't bother with a Masters or PHd because I saw that as ego-stroking and that I would learn more in industry than writing papers or teaching labs." You have to write papers to get a Ph.D. these days; some places do make you write them for a Master's, now, mine didn't. But ego-stroking? What's bad about getting more skills, more / newer software skills, and adding to the knowledge base of mankind?
" My income has gone up every year since 1995 through raises or switching jobs because I have skills that cannot be off-shored or replicated without years of on-the-job experience." Best of luck on that one - I worked for six companies across twenty years, and one day I didn't have a job anymore. I hope you never find the same - I switched jobs in 2001 for a better opportunity, right before that suit decided that an 8% workforce reduction.....
"the belief that taxes are preventing jobs from being created (rather than merely preventing profits from being pocketed) is a tried and true conceit" Given the current crop of crony capitalists, it's not a conceit. If you're waiting for government to do anything wise / productive / intelligent, you'll be waiting a long time.
"but jobs are created when demand outstrips production and never before." Only as long as capital isn't strip-mined and hamstrung by regulations to the point growth cannot occur.
"You got the right problem, but the wrong analysis as to the cause." I disagree; until the goverment gets out of the markets, finances and DAILY LIVES of everyday Americans, recovery cannot occur.
Best of luck!
ED
You assume that one can't acquire more / newer software skills or add to the knowledge base of mankind outside of academia, when there's evidence aplenty that this couldn't be farther from the truth (myself included). Equally dubious is the proposition that being in academia would bring those changes about; I read enough laughably useless papers to know otherwise. I call em "gradual students"...like a teenager that won't leave momma's nest for fear of having to actually do something with their lives.
All but one of my job changes was voluntary, the last being the result of poor management that shut down the company after 15 decent years; I was unemployed for all of three weeks last November before taking another gig at 120% of previous salary and a title change I'd been interested in for awhile. Suffice to say that if guys in Bangalore could optimize assembly code as well as I can, I'd have been off-shored long, long ago. There are zero beads of sweat on my brow.
Please give me a single example of "capital being strip-mined by regulation"...as I said before, reducing profits, maybe, but little other consequence; if their margins were that tight before, any ill-placed fart would have done the same damage. I'm not waiting for government to do anything; I don't think it's their charter, but neither am I pretending that deregulation would achieve anything but a wider income gap.
Your assumptions about things you have never experienced are amazing! You've never been in graduate school, but you assume eveyone is a "gradual student" and immature. When was the last time you supported four people on less than $25k a year? Ever? Then make no assumptions about me. Academia never brings changes about? Ever heard of fuel cells, molecular modeling, fusion? None of those would have gotten very far without a lot of academic effort. Laughably useless papers abound, but then so do Dodge Nash's master's thesis, Richard Feynmann's "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", and similar. For a good idea of what is possible, take a look at: http://jrossmacdonald.com/
Then you go on to make my point! You were laid off, apparently not your fault, and were fortunate enough to land a new gig. Had you not, your attitude might be considerably different. Optimizing code will be your ticket on the gravy train ... until it isn't.
Capital strip-mined by regulation? That's easy: oil & gas royalty taxes, estate (death) taxes, capital gains taxes, and the entire IRS code. If everyone wasn't paying all those taxes, would the money be available for investment, savings or purchases? How much do you think it costs to lease an offshore land parcel for drilling? Do you think any of it goes towards anything useful?
"as I said before, reducing profits, maybe, but little other consequence; if they're margins were that tight before, any ill-placed fart would have done the same damage." It costs millions to lease offshore, millions more to drill, and then you pay taxes on the production and the products. You need to read up a little on the cost of regulations: " Crews’ report cites the work of economists Nicole V. Crain and W. Mark Crain, whose study of the net cost of regulations determined that in 2009 federal regulation cost businesses and consumers $1.75 trillion, or nearly 12% of America’s 2009 GDP. As a comparison, in the same year, corporate pre-tax profits for all businesses totaled about $ 1.46 trillion." (from http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/jhammerton/the-hidden-cost-of-regulation)
You're welcome to your opinions, but not your own facts.
There are 3 post-docs in my family and friends; I know plenty. No, Ive never supported four people on that salary because I wouldn't attempt something that ill-advised. I don't dispute the value of research, just the conclusion that it only happens in your ivory towers. I'm glad you admit that a significant portion of research dollars goes into supporting work that is of very little value to society overall.
I don't dispute that money not paid in taxes will go into pockets, it's the distribution and disposition that leaves a great deal to be desired. And you're being more than a little hypocritical since the doctoral life you're advocating is very often paid for with grants from the NSF whose funding comes from...?
You're giving me reasons why off-shore drilling is not an efficient use of capital exactly why? Are there multi-national oil companies with beggar bowls that I've missed?
Please point me to the study that shows the cost of not having regulations? (hint: consider an earthquake which hits two towns...one with seismic building codes...and one without)
You haven't presented any facts...and neither did the Crains; I'd love to know what regulations they considered as contributing to the total, but they forgot to include any actual data. The only thing they showed beyond doubt is that small businesses bear a larger burden from regulation than larger ones, but that's not exactly a revelation. Pretending that regulation is a bigger burden on small businesses than debt service to bankers, competition from China, or competition from multi-nationals doing business in the US is both disingenuine and slightly retarded.
You're welcome to your opinions too, but don't try to substitute assumptions and estimates for 'facts', slick.
+1 GMS
And they are again signing up for huge mortgages on overpriced homes with crushing property tax bills in my area. The prices aren't far from the bubble highes, yet they are still selling at a decent clip. We have housing bubble 2.0. Even when it is apparent that many local businesses have closed and the ones left aren't as busy as before.
Luckily, I've never been in that position, having parents who imparted the value of hard work, savings and prudence. But I do wonder how folks on minimum wage (and yes, I know it's not supposed to be for heads of households) can afford to live with food, housing, clothes, utilites, cars, toys, insurance, savings, etc. But then they don't. They get food stamps, child care & housing allowances, save nothing, get discounted utilities, electronic toys on the black market and have no insurance. The vast majority are living one government paycheck to the next.
The real calamity of an economic crisis are the tens of millions who suddenly will have less money through draconian cuts in social programs.
Don't cry for Jamie. It's the only way he'll ever learn.
Bullish.......
there is much to said for having the stability of a strong middle class. such a massive divergence created by politicians and writ as policy of "those that got get those that not shall lose" is pushing a State that depends on the massive tax revenues of a vibrant and sharp elbowed "going somewhere" group on the precipice. i really don't see how we've banished failure by these policies "post 9/11"...the only thing that loves such a gross disparity in wealth is the stock market and in that sense "it has responded as expected." will we see What God hath Wrought shortly? I'm betting yes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9XKVTNs1g4
But..but..the stock market is naer an all-time high and my $6,000 401-k has grown to $6,398 since the beginning of the year. Winning!
I stop reading when Jim Cramer is quoted.
Then your rigidity caused you to miss a great example of contrary indication.
What a bunch of malarky!
The stock market is booming, and thanks to the Ron Paul voters, the green shoots of recovery summers 4,5,6,&7 are right around the corner!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyone want to buy some 10 oz silver bars? I'm cashin' in to get in on the coming market boom.
Pawn shops buy at spot and they can test them if they are real. You don't want to buy that type of "retail" on the internet.
Ever. Coin shavings and tungsten weights are too common. Especially in the 10 oz variety. Have you tested your silver to see if it's geniune other than the offical and replicable stamp on it?
the plutocrats do not give a rat's ass - this destruction is planned to create fear and despair...
Ha, yeah, I was successfully self-employed for twelve years starting in 2000. 2008 was the beginning of the end of my small business and closed in 2012. Now a broke W-2 slave, working part time (employer not hiring full time), at a little above minimum wage.
what a fucking nightmare. you must be fucking hating everything by now.
#3 and #11-15 = Game Over.
Patience lads; the big short is coming up.
So disgusted with our thoroughly corrupt and shameless leaders. The One and all his crew.
Shorting would imply interest in feeding the beast. I don't see a lot of that today. Most people would like to eat vs gamble.
I totally agree. People who think that we are entering a Weimer outcome will be surprised when the bubble of debt implodes. The bankers and politicians have already proven that they will protect sovereign backed bonds at all costs not because they want to but because they need to. Junk bonds and low grade corporates will default en masse. Interest rates MUST be kept low for government borrowing. To do that, inflation MUST be contained. I will believe in a wide-spread inflation outcome when I start to see wages rising. Ain't going to happen.
Biflation until the complete collapse.
Print money...give it to the middle class....fuck everyone else.
They did, it's why the housing collapse happened.
He said GIVE it to the middle class, not LEND it.
I've read that people get to stay in their homes even after not paying for it. That sounds like give to me.
Memories are short of how many carry over scams were run from all fronts. The robosigner is just one of around 160 different scam angles that popped out of that shit storm.
Green shoots, xmas miracles, now everyone understands it was nonsense. But that's how we got here. Money was given to the middle class. Homes were and are practically being given away. The story at the time now sounds like complete fluff now doesn't it. It glossed over the fact that money and homes were being given away by poor policy execution, state side amentities, direct scam or, saddly and in most cases, necessity by squating.
Then there is the stock market. People should have RUN in 2008, but they came right fucking back and have been profiting handsomely...until it's no longer profit, it's a debt swap for food stamps, EBT and god knows what other looney scheme gets dreamt up next.
This is the world now and its very forgetful, angry, and broken.
It's like the Simpsons episode, when they couldn't afford the dollar store and went to the dime store where all they could buy to eat was krill.
Don't worry, Shitcago has enough money to do that :
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/02/28/chicago-passes-sex-ed-for-...
The new policy, which the Chicago Board of Education passed Wednesday, mandates that a set amount of time be spent on sex education in every grade, beginning in kindergarten. Chicago has the third-largest public school system in the country, with 431,000 students.
“It is important that we provide students of all ages with accurate and appropriate information so they can make healthy choices in regards to their social interactions, behaviors and relationships,” Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the CEO of the Chicago Public School System, said in a statement. “By implementing a new sexual health education policy, we will be helping them to build a foundation of knowledge that can guide them not just in the preadolescent and adolescent years, but throughout their lives.”
Under the new policy, the youngest students – the kindergartners — will learn the basics about anatomy, reproduction, healthy relationships and personal safety. Through the third grade, the sex-ed lessons will focus on the family, feelings and appropriate and inappropriate touching. In the fourth grade, students will start learning about puberty, and HIV. Discussions will emphasize that the virus cannot be transmitted through everyday contact such as shaking hands or sharing food.
From the fifth through the 12th grade, the emphasis will be on reproduction, the transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS, and other sexually-transmitted diseases, bullying and contraception, including abstinence.
To the author; nice summary of recent downturn signs.
I pretty much agree that things are turning down. The economy has been at stall speed for some time and we may be actually stalling now or soon. Will be interesting to see what government actions are in store.
'Americans' consider the middle class status as their most engraved status.
This 'american' article does not miss.
Today, part of the middle class is to be sacrificed in order to save the other part. The servants to We The People, aka the 'american' middle class, have figured out no other solution.
There is such a transition during which the sacrificed middle class is going to grow poorer so that their wealth is redistributed to the other part.
But 'americans' for their propaganda purpose will keep counting those sacrificed people as being middle class, even though they are less and less.
Eg:
________________________
Due to a lack of jobs and high levels of debt, poverty among young adults in America is absolutely exploding. Today, U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
________________________
But those young adults are not middle class. Save through lineage. Or by comparison to a past when in a same situation, a young started active life in the middle class etc
They should not count. But 'americans' will keep counting them.
Indeed, there were too many 'american' middle classers. And as soon as they have lost their middle class status, they should no longer be counted. When it is performed, suddenly, it appears that the remaining 'american' middle class is doing well. Very well.
But do not rely on 'americans' to admit that.
The middle class status is their most hallowed status. So it has to be permanent.
Is there any point at all in that blather?
Yep, that the 'american' middle class is doing good and that by counting people who are no longer middle class as still being middle class, you hide that fact.
But hey, 'americanism' is as 'american' does. And victimhood is high among 'americans'...
But hey, glaring hypocrisy and spinning of lies is as 'chinese' AnAnonymysticism does. And victimhood under mythical US 'american' Citizenism is high amongst AnAnonymystics ....
Funny how some people love to cling to their beliefs when facts are slapping them in the face.
But hey, scapesgoatery is high among AnAnonymystical Chinese citizenist hypocritizenism.
Communist 'chinese' scrapesgoatery is the inevitable brown baby Mao of insanitational 'chinese' citizenism crackedpottery.
Conflatuation of kneejerking collectivist personal anti-American hatred with AnAnonymystical "US 'american' citizenism' leads to projectionizing of bigotries as nonsensical citizenismistic roadside-crapping dogma.
The mattering point of the bigoted throating of the mind and wording of ideas of AnAnonymous is that every American is a 'foreign devil' worthy of murder, in the great tradition of the tens of millions killed in the Communist Chinese Great Leap Foward into Insanitation, as well as during the so-called "Cultural Revolution", both spearheaded by the greatest mass murderer in human history, the Great Helmsman himself, Mousy Tongue, whose skill in helmsmanizing was equal to that of the captain of the Exxon Valdez, but whose bloodlust and thirst for power exceeded that of Vlad the Impaler.
True dat.
AnAnonymous, stoned in his neighbourhood Peoples Liberation Opium Parlour, said:
Man, living in your world of delusions might be nice.
Most engraved status? What meaning gives this wordings? Most carved up status is better served example, much like neighbourhood dogs and cats local to AnAnonymous are most carved up and served example in his JKC (Just Killed Cat) Chinese citizenism fastfood franchise.
Such word crappings are somehow synonymous with AnAnonymoronic Chinese citizenism propaganda. Eternal nature and all that stuff.
You, sir, are a virtual parangong of forcing hypocritizenistic Communist 'chinese' blame to the exterior and speaking to the nib of the non-offuscationalized mattering thing.
Alas, alas, double unlucky three times alas, an AnAnonymystic will still crap on your shoes and call it dim sum.
I'm sure life is better in your classless Chinese society and you'll be getting that invitation to the politburo parties any day now.
<crickets>
What is this mythical middle class you speak of? It is more extinct than the Dodo.
Dreams die hard and the myth of the American dream dies a lot harder.
The biggest sign is that the top 1% of households are getting about 100% of the income gains. And under a "socialist" president!
Believe what people do not what they say.
Hey, Middle Class!
As they say, “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
In California, when returns from the fuel tax declined because drivers were trying to avoid the higher costs, the state has responded with a 10% increase in the excise tax on gasoline.
How about parking your car, finally, and taking rapid transit? No. They are waiting for you there. Bay area transportation (BART) is raising ticket prices.
But, at least, there’s free parking in some areas around BART stations. No. Those are being eliminated everywhere. You’ll have to pay parking; but now the parking rates are going up.
Conclusion? Middle Class.
You work for the government. And they need your money for their priorities.
You do know that BART is a private corporation, right?
If you do choose to ride via BART, hopefully you picked the day when the cops can differentiate between the taser and the handgun.
Five and dimes will pop up in every town in America, vintage resale.
"Got any coffee makers in?"
"Nope, but check back tomorrow, there's a storage unit auction this afternoon."
Nature finds a way.
It'll be just like new times.
The muppets are all buying guns and ammo with what's left of their discretionairy funds. They know the score. Think I'm joking? Think again. And the government knows it too. Even the liberals are stocking up.
: "The muppets are all buying guns and ammo with what's left of their discretionairy funds. They know the score. Think I'm joking? Think again. And the government knows it too. Even the liberals are stocking up."
So is the government. Whoever has the most bullets (not guns) wins.
If they waste ammo like they waste taxpayer dollars, we should be fine with our measly stash.
"And the government knows it too."
"...i'm just burnin doin the neutron dance..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm0Of5d7M4g
: "How will we ever have a sustained economic recovery if consumers don't have much money to spend?"
We will have "recovery" when the banks ease credit restrictions for everybody, and people start borrowing again. "Debt" creates money that goes into the system, and our whole financial system is dependant upon debt. No "new debt"; no "recovery".
Bzzt. They are lending for mortgages and the restrictions aren't that much tighter than before. The Bernanke is blowing housing bubble 2.0 so expect another wave of forclosures in the next couple of years.
They must be excluding EBT cards in these figures. I'm pretty sure most if not all those retailers accept them as well as cash. Just sayin..
Average EBT benefit is $200 per month, how crazy can you get on 2400$ a year?
America, land of promise no? Are people getting on rafts from Florida to Cuba? Just checking. I have relatives in Canada and can move any time. Not there yet. But I am all for knowing your neighborhood well and your neighbors even better. Waiting for the Announcement that all your dollars are now worth 5 cents. A 1 to 20 devaluation would be a great reality step. I am dusting of the old hockey skates just in case.
Your dollar is worth 5 cents...almost 8000% inflation in the dollar since 1913. Where have you been?
I'd get started on the way to Canada, except it's not far enough from the fascist grasp of America's Latter Day Feudal Plutocracy (TM).
But the consumer has his/her iPhone/iPad and been paying north of $100 each month for "the service." Welcome to the post postmodernity, where simulation on simulation of the reality feels much more real than the reality itself.
I don't argue with any of the fine points made in this article. But I just visited my daughter in the mid size city in which she lives. 78K population.
I can't believe the changes over the past 10 years! Brand new freeway bypasses around the north south and east west axis. A brand new large ring road around the city with exits to all the major neighborhoods. An explosion in stip malls and giant mall complexes. New stores and chains lining every major road. Just a general retail and restaurant explosion!
Now I know we had a bubble, but on my visit I went out on a Thursday evening and all these places were jumping with people! Olive Garden, where I stopped to use the clean restrooms, had about 75 cars in their huge parking lot. Thursday evening???
The mall complex was packed, lots of young folks shopping and using the food court. Customers in all the stores. The same thing everywhere I went!
I believe we are sinking fast economically. But how on earth can I square that with the mass consumption I saw? And people are driving nice cars too, no junkers on the road. Maybe this town is more middle class, it is mostly white and has had business move there in the last decade. Perhaps this town is an aberation.
same here, the shopping malls are packed. you can hardly drive past the huge 4 phase strip shopping mall. me, i put my cash in a 1000 pound safe. dredge my gold when i get a chance and read books. drive my old paid for cars, live in my dinky paid for house. run about 3 times a week and bide my time. stacking it up. looking on in utter amazement at the waste, and the stock market, and the gibs.
i think sometime in the near future it will have been a wise decision, and if not maybe i can retire with a modicum of comfort and security
it was a beautiful sunny day when the meteor hit and destroyed the dinosaurs.
the nature of chaos implies disorder follows order, we are currently in a very ordered society. We have laws that dictate every economic and social transaction, they tell us what we can own, what we can grow, and what we can eat, and what we can think.
A highly ordered state must give way to a highly disordered state. It might wind down, but chances are much higher for an abrupt schism which changes everything rapidly.
Same as it ever was, spending idle moments shopping for trinkets and staying anesthized by the anti-depressant drugs, the fluoridated water/beer/food and wall sized televisions, until the tap is dry, and the outlets provide nothing save silence.
Is it better to be awake and watch the carnage or to die in your sleep?
I'vw always want to be shot in the head, like jfk. One second you're there, the next you're not.
The way things are going I may just get my wish.
Death comes for all, don't hurry the reaper.
No rush, I just don't see a non-violent economic collapse. I just pray not to get gut-shot, and hope I can take some banksters with me!
You sound like a fun guy!
/s
Jack Burton:
" I don't argue with any of the fine points made in this article. But I just visited my daughter in the mid size city in which she lives. 78K population. ... "
Where's this?
im close to charlotte nc, across the river
don't know where jack is. i think the point is that there are so many people out there that spend every extra penny they get. and there are any number of mortgage companies, banks, credit card companies extending credit. i guess these are the people who still have jobs and their children. just about every car company out there will give you nothing down 84 month loans, even to people with 6,7,8, and 9's on their credit report. i think they do it because "everybody else does it and they seem fine" but i also think this group is getting smaller and smaller.
you reading this shows me that you are probably not "clueless" as to how rigged the entire world's finance systems are, and when, or what catalyst will blow away all things that we have ever known. i know i do.
sounds like u r near my home turf, the waxhaws.
grew up between pageland and jefferson. now live about 8 miles south of gastonia.
fracking our way to freedom...
City of Oz, the Emerald City, a shining beacon in the middle of poppy fields, where the great Wizard OZ himself rules with a kind and just hand and can solve all problems large or small with a personal audience of mere minutes.
Yet some who visit still want to just go home.
Just click your heels together 3 times, you could always do it, you'll either be home or find yourself in line waiting for our furher to pass with yourself swathed in the uniform of the empire ready to die for another oil field, bringing freedom to the world one bullet at a time.
Central Wisconsin, Within 1 hour drive of the Twin Cities Metro area. Friggen boom town!
40K in Dunn County can go far.
I too have seen these "pockets" of "middle class opulence" which are hard to square with all the doom and gloom I read on places like ZH, SHTFplan, the economic collpase etc.
But then again, I get frustrated because it seems a lot of my aquaintances are on some form of succulent government employment. Is it that there is more behind the government "subsidies" than just EBT, SS, govt pensions etc ?
I wonder how many of these consumers in these seeeming economic oasises (plural for oasis sp? damn where is that spell check?) are being govt subsidized?
As a physician, I sure as hell know that my income is also being substantially subsidized by the government through Medicare/Medicaid. What is the burn rate for those who are still able to afford private health insurance? It seems that food, energy, health care, and student loan debt (non dischargable as opposed to mortage debt) would be the four horsemen of this talked about imminent economic apolcaplyse.
Finally, those who have jobs in theory would qualify to buy a house, but job security is so fragile, that people are afraid to buy a house even if they could afford it. It goes hand in hand with workers being transformed into temporary contractors. I see this with my brothers who are enginneers. Even in the medical field, I see more and more MDs being recruited as locum tenens (temporary workers).
Translation: I will not buy a house until my daughter is grown and I am no longer able to work (formerly called retirement.)
What you are trying to fully enunciate is the concept that I have called Biflation (on here for a long time).
All necessities (your 'four horsemen' of food, energy, health care and student loans) are becoming more expensive relative to income (contracting in real terms up to now. Take a look at Friday's income report for a taste of new reality).
But in the even larger picture is the fact that all cost inputs are rising while the value of products (tangible or service) is falling. Which squeezes margins and destroys the business model for virtually all free enterprise.
Blame it on reckless monetary policy interventions by the central bankers: trying to reflate in the midst of a spiraling depression.
And yes, residential real estate will deflate at all but the highest end.
Even during the Great Depression some restaurants were packed : Horn and Hardart, Mama Leone's, Lundy's to name just a few. And movie theaters were packed each week even in the smallest towns that had them. And people shopped for vegetables and meat.
And there were also breadlines, hobbos eating out of cans by the railroad tracks, Hoovervilles even in 2 places on the isle of Manhattan in NYC where panhandlers lived off soup kitchen grub. Skidrow hotels rented rooms for the night for 10 cents. And Oakies packed it up to Cali and lived in squalid labor camps picking fruit.
Just because some are doing well doens't mean it's not a depression. Anyone with any income still has to shop, albeit less. And the rich are doing better than ever
I don't argue with any of the fine points made in this article. But I just visited my daughter in the mid size city in which she lives. 78K population.
I am in Texas, and we have the same issues here.
Car sales thru the roof, and I am talking Benz/BMW,etc.
Homes still going up, and restaurants(are ALL packed),if you show up 30 mins after any decent eatery opens you will sit and wait 10-30 mins for a table.
On weekends they open at 10:30(because of parking shortages!, and you will be lucky to get seated at 11:00 a.m,show up at noon, prepare to wait an hour.
We have not felt the recession in anyway form or fashion compared to most of the US.(espin the DFW area),fastest growing area in the entire USA.
Hit a Sams'/Costco, on a weekend?, forget it.
Even on a weekday, best hit it early or you will park a block away.
Walmarts have slowed way down, but a lot of that is people are price shopping and finding they can get foodstuffs at Krogers/Tom Thumb cheaper than WalMarts in most cases(and this accts for around 40-50% of Walmarts revenues.
It's basically been business as usual here since 2010, and just NOW are we starting to see major layoffs in the defense sectors, and shopping malls, radio shackes etc,etc.
Everytime I'm gloom and doom I go out to eat at on a Friday night and remember my hour wait at outback. I see signs of a strong economy in a lot of places, but you want find them visiting JCP. Take a trip to a high end center and look at the people buying louboutin shoes, or louis bags, the cartier store, etc. Those places are thriving in most areas. A somewhat local jeweler told me last year was his best year in Rolex sales. Lots of upgrade trade ins and $20k+ sales. His store is in a town with less than 15k people, and the biggest town within a hour only has 20k people.
A guy I went to high school with is a small town car salesman. Six figure income last two years. Yeah, people can't afford cars, but a shit ton of them are still buying.
Bottom line, I see money being spent everywhere, on almost everything. Sure the sub $30k households are hurting, but they weren't big spenders in the first place. They were never buying new cars. The line between lower middle class and upper poverty limit are being pushed together. It can't last forever, but we are a long ways off from seeing the result.
YT is probably the clue.
Well at least those with paid access to Washington are doing alright
Nine executives at private-equity firms together will take home more than $1 billion in dividends and compensation from last year, even as some of Wall Street's top bankers saw their paychecks shrink.
The big payouts for the founders of Apollo Global Management LLC, APO -0.43%Blackstone Group LP, BX -0.63% Carlyle Group LP CG -1.86% and KKRKKR +0.38% & Co. show how Wall Street's pecking order has changed since the financial crisis.
Try finding a parking place at Fry's Electronics on a weekend around here and you get a bit of a different picture than this article paints. Actually doing that is good practice for knowing how to get a parking place at Trader Joe's. I had to quit trying to park there during the day and only go after 8pm because it is so crowded. I'll often park on te street and walk there instead of trying to use their parking lot. And it doesn't matter which Trader Joes that you go to. The lines for In/Out Burgers are also long and crammed with high tempered people.
Where do live? is it the city of Oz or is it Malibu?
No he probably is up near Nor Cal with Frys. Prolly Silicon Valley. The tech companies are still making phantom profits like FraudBook and others.
Trader joes does well wherever they are because their prices are cheap.
Yeah and the savings went down from 6% to 2.X% recently. Just cuz a Buncha dumbfux are out pinching out their last hurrah doesn't mean things are getting better....
Good thing that dessication cracks like in the pic are cool! At least we have interesting pics and caharts to look at and keep ourselves amused (cheaper than Nexflix even)
I love me some interesting caharts, along with insightful discussion of say the picture instead of the actual points presented in the article.
What's to worry about? The bankers get bailed out and still get their bonuses. Also the upper 1% has a ton of tax breaks and loopholes. Surely all of that wealth will trickle down to the peons soon enough and consumertopia will be back on again. /sarc
You reelected this man, don't cry on my shoulder. We warned you.
we relected ben bernanke?
If voting could change anything it would be against the law.
But nice short governnment trained thought pattern, aka involuntary response. You voted for him. what a laugh...
Do some thinking, do you really beleive one man can creat all this chaos, and that one man is the POTUS? is he god? can his will be done by sheer thought alone?
wake and realize you know nothing if you think like you write.
Bernanke was most definitely on the ballot. If Owebama lost, Bernanke was on the short bus back to the asylum (in 2014).
Who appoints Bernanke? Rest my case. Did you just vote for the new treasury secretary?
Never underestimate the United State Federal Government's ability to funnel more and more spending money over to the Free Shit Army. There's always a fresh scheme to milk. A new benefit to guzzle. A backdoor exit to escape repayment. An army of lobbyists to pout and demand more. The only people running out of money are those dumb enough to try to save it.
http://refreshingnews99.blogspot.in/2013/03/americans-see-biggest-monthl...As long as the $38 million in my retirement account collects a fair rate of interest, I will have a modest retirement income.
Not when your grocery bill for a week becomes $32 million!
Damn, that .01% interest, and no access to the principle, was supposed to last me 30 years.
Yeah...so...about that account...we've got some bad news.
Hey, I've been BROKE just to piss off my ex and the banksters!
I am poor and I know it.
The Chinks aren't exactly using catalytic converters to protect your precious environment either Anon Ahole.
PART 1: The following deals with Money, Debt and Honor, and is longer than we'd all like it to be, but I think/hope it helps to clear up a lot of confusion and 'churn'.
1. The (subconscious) mistake that many 'old-school' people make, who have been raised to honor their debt obligations, is that the 'old' system was based on REAL money, i.e. bold & silver-backed money. As of 8/15/1971 this is no longer the case. Since then -- thanks a Trillion, asshole Nixon!, a GOP good ol' boy, BTW -- we have had 'confetti' money. Officially called fiat money, since it's created by fiat (at-will, by decree).
2. Normally we'd have gone the way of all other inflated currencies (e..g Argentina...Yugoslavia), were it no for ONE simple benefit: The USD was/is the Global Reserve Currency (GRC). If countries want to buy/sell oil or PM's -- guess what -- they have to buy USD's. Because of its GRC status -- and for NO other reason -- the US is able to 'print' money till the cows come home. This allows the politicians (I call them ploticians for obvious reasons) have been getting elected on promises of what they'll do for their electorate with their money. Some have spent it on 'guns', others on 'butter'. It matters not so much on which, but the fact that they have both overspent.
3. And this gov spending has not been based on real money (hard money), but on fiat/confetti money that only represents Debt. And ALL debt is simply a representation of work & service performed in the past or to be done in the future. This 'bond' is in fact 'bondage' to work -- past, present and future.
4. The difference between the issuer and receiver of these (debt) bonds is that due to FRB, the issuer has negligible (few %) of REAL equity in the debt creation called a Loan or Mortgage, since their FRB leveraging rights allow them to create 'money' out of thin air. With a some keystrokes, a CTRL-P, and a stroke of a signing pen -- presto, voila! -- you have new 'money'. It's as though you had just printed it yourself, except that you do not have the LEAs (Law Enforcement Agencies) or the US Army backing your banking & printing operation.
5. So, the next time you get that loan or mortgage, consider this: With the 5-10% down payment you have already covered the bank's portion of real equity, due to the FRB process. If you were to default the very next day, they're ahead of you on the money game, because not only do they have their true investment covered by said down-payment, but they now also have the asset. All payments on your loans and mortgages you make are just extra profits for the banks, just extra deposits they can leverage in their ongoing FRB game.
6. This helps explain why only 0.6% (6 in 1000) new banks fail in the first 3 years, compared to 90% of new businesses. If you hit the lottery jackpot and have netted $10-20 Million, you too can have your own bank and join the FRB game, rather than blowing it on... unleveraged assets and other... crap.
7. So, the next time some old-school 'geezer' or some young "brain-washed dolt" regurgitates some old line about the "honor" of debt, remember that this is (a) a business, and (b) a game for the banks. As a 'business' there is no 'personal' consideration of old-fashioned 'honor' --whereby 'honor' was/is simply a codeword for "honoring an agreement". If they can use legal or procedural loopholes to skirt their end or gain any kind of advantage, they will. 'Honor' be damned. You, on the other had, as a well-trained serf who is conditioned to cow-tow to all forms of official authority, are expected to ('supposed' to) keep your part of the agreement -- whether you keep it by the power of the written contract, or by the power of your 'honor'. 'Honor' is not a "2-way street among equals" for them, ins spite of their pretenses and fiendish PR. It's a "1-way street", since you are NOT equals. In their minds, in their world, they are the masters, you are the serfs/debt-slaves.
Welcome to the bond-age bondage, you born-again serfs!