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Guest Post: The Great "American" Divide
Submitted by Lance Roberts of Street Talk Live blog,
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This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Submitted by Lance Roberts of Street Talk Live blog,
I have often spoken of the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. While asset prices are inflated by continued interventions of monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, boosting Wall Street profits and widening the wealth gap between the top 20% of Americans and the rest, "Main Street" continues to suffer a from a rising cost of living and falling wage growth. Just recently Gallup released the following survey:
"The federal poverty threshold for a family of four is just under $24,000; however, Americans believe such a family unit living in their community needs more than double that -- $58,000, on average -- just to 'get by.' That estimate reflects 29% of Americans saying these families need up to $50,000 in annual income, 47% saying they need between $50,000 and $99,999, and 10% saying they need $100,000 or more."
The problem is that as the cost of living rises over time due to the effects of inflation - median household incomes have fallen. The following chart shows the seasonally adjusted median household income through March of 2013 as compared to Gallup's poll of family living needs.
The shortfall is quite evident. The obvious question that follows is:
"Where does the money come from to fill the gap between living standards and incomes?"
The chart below answers that question. The chart shows the difference between the $58,000 need for a family unit and median incomes, defined as the "income gap," and then compared to household credit.
Besides the very brief forced deleveraging of balance sheets during the financial crisis, as households defaulted on debt and financial institutions cut credit lines, consumers have returned to credit to supplement incomes with a vengeance since 2011.
Ample Evidence
There is considerable evidence behind the current dislocation between Corporate America and Main Street. Real unemployment remains extremely elevated as witnessed by the labor force participation rate and employment-to-population ratio at levels not seen since the early 1980's.
I recently published a piece on the "5 Questions That Every Market Bull Should Answer" discussing the disconnect between the "have's" and the "have not's" stating:
"Suppressed wage growth, layoffs, cost-cutting, productivity increases, accounting gimmickry and stock buybacks have been the primary factors in surging profitability. However, these actions are finite in nature and inevitably it will come down to topline revenue growth. However, since consumer incomes have been cannibalized by suppressed wages and interest rates - there is nowhere left to generate further sales gains from in excess of population growth."
This is why the gap between corporate profits and the number of working employees is the highest level on record. Fewer workers, higher productivity and longer hours for the same pay, or less, equals higher corporate profits. This is great for executives, primarily the top 10% of wage of earners, who are compensated from rising share prices, bonuses and other performance related compensation. However, for the "working stiff," there is little reward for their labor.
"Welfaring Of America"
At $58,000, Americans' perceptions of the amount it takes just to get by in their community is substantially higher that the national median household income. This level is also well out of reach for a bulk of the lower 30% of American households.
However, this gap between incomes and living standards goes a long way to explaining the "welfaring" of America. As incomes have waned against a rising cost of living - it is not surprising to see more individuals receiving income supplements in the mail either from "food stamps", social security benefits or disability claims. All of which are currently at record levels. The chart below shows the level of social security benefits as a percentage of disposable personal incomes which is currently near the highest level on record.
"How long can the disconnect last between Wall Street and Main Street? "
There is no clear answer for that as consumers have shown a willingness to draw down savings rates to historically low levels while quickly returning to cheap credit forgetting the disaster that it caused them not so long ago. However, in reality, when you have a family to feed, clothe and house - it really doesn't matter what is logical, but what is necessary, regardless of the consequences down the road. Of course, for many American's today, the only real difference between now and the "bread lines" of the 30's is that the "bread" is delivered in the mail rather than at the "soup kitchen" on the corner.
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So what. Wall Street got God on their side... doing God's work and all...
God(?) has nothing to do with it. Wall Street continues to rise not only due to FED pumping but also earnings. This come at a price though - fewer workers (automation), fewer hours (Obamacare) and more tricks (buybacks, one-time write-offs, etc). LOL When I grew up, Wall Street was like the city of gold. I was so overwhelmed at the activity when I visited. Of course those were also the days when folks saved and kids wanted to grow up rich, have a big home and drive a big car. Wealth is now something to be denigrated - even the Prez piles on about folks earning "enough".
You started strong...super weak finish. It's not wealth that is denigrated, it's the means of it being achieved i.e. your strong start.
The real divide is between the Debt Money Tyrant debt money creators and cotnrollers and everyone else...
Debt Money Tyranny - You'be Been Punked!
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/4768883/debtmoneytyranny-6-1-pdf-60k?tr=77
There wealth is, quite literally, our unpayable debt BY DEFINITION!
Poverty: Debt is not a Choice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juQc0rLdB-E
How to be a Crook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oHbwdNcHbc
Why work when you can live on the taxpayer dime, everyday at work I see immigrants, young, old, middle aged, able bodied to work using food stamps, eating like royalty and acting like it too. They know they are screwing the system and thumb their nose at the working taxpayers.
Why work when you can live on the taxpayer dime, everyday at work I see immigrants, young, old, middle aged, able bodied to work using food stamps, eating like royalty and acting like it too.
Yeah 'cause 250$ a month is eating like royalty.
Meanwhile the actual beneficiaries of snap (Wal-Mart owners) don't just eat like real royalty but damn near are royalty.
My response? Start your own damn Walmart then. If you think those at the top live like royalty, you are absolutely free to go ahead and compete - it's done all across America every day. Of COURSE owners have more than workers - that's implicit. I worked at Wal Mart as a kid and was surprised at how hands-on upper management was. They didn't just sit in a board room screwing secretaries all day.
You morons miss the root cause of all this; Why work when you charge the taxpayer money to print their own money? End the motherfucking Fed already. Stupid sheep. The world will once again learn what the true meaning of "work", "value", and "money" is again and yes, it will be bloody.
My response? Start your own damn Walmart then.
Your response had exactly nothing to do with what I said. I was pointing out a basic fact, wal-mart IS a major beneficiary of snap. The walton family in terms of assets relative to avg Americans is comparable to royalty in other countries.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/06/who-benefits-most-from-food-stamps...
Yeah let me just fish around in the couch for a couple of million to get started on a vast wholesale to retail warehouse model. Oh right, perhaps the banks will lend to me...oh right.
Hard work is great, I work hard for my money. I worked hard in school and not a day goes by I don't teach my son that hard work is where it's at. The system is NOT the one you grew up in with Wall Street being a city of gold. Wall Street is a city of tungsten in hollowed out gold. It's all scam. No investment just gambling, no building up of America just skimming, scamming, ponzi schemes and free no-risk money from the FED as far as the eye can see.
Complaining about welfare recipients and people out of work (as though people don't WANT to work and there are decent paying jobs aplenty) is like someone with stage IV colorectal cancer complaining about a hangnail. Sure the hangnail exists, but it's a small nuisance compared to the REAL problem and that's crony capitalism and the ELITE feeding at the trough. That would be your good buddies the Walton family. One of the biggest employers of Food Stamp recipients in almost every state is Walmart. That helps them keep wages depressed as TAX PAYERS fill in the gap that they as employers should pay.
This is why there are so many on benefits, you can't LIVE on wages due to inflation and an overall degradation of the American standard of living which is due in large part to the aforementioned crony capitalism, FED funny money and lets add in globalization and off shoring of jobs. You can't compare people not working in 1972 to people not working in 2012 it's RADICALLY different. The blue collar jobs that built this country are long gone. The white collar jobs the boomers enjoyed are being eliminated the minute the boomers retire.
So to sum up you have no idea what you are talking about.
wouldn't it be cheaper, easier and more to the point to simply direct deposit to every citizen over the age of 19 or 20 the 60,000 and do away with all the govt sludge and robots filing and documenting, issuing and tracking? the bankocracy would have to love it. as it's playing out it's such a charade, why not at least be upfront? haven't most crumbling civilizations, as a last ditch attempt to retain power, standardly provided bread or rice or in the case of ancient egypt a combo of bread and beer?
I have a better idea. Why don't we require corporate America to give every working person in this country an across the board pay increase of 20%. This could very easily come out of the bloated profits and savings of our sacred multinational corporations.
Yeah, because mandated wage and price controls have worked SO well wherever they've been implemented. Ignoring the complete destruction of the rule of law and contracts (working for an agreed price), it's a bureaucrat's wet dream - deciding who gets to take what from who. If the FED has taught us anything it is that artificial prices (not determined by the market) inevitably leads to disaster. It tool the USSR 70 years to learn that the price of a car was not what some Moscow idiot mandated but the cost of materials and labor.
Like we actually have a free unfettered labor market. LOL They are deliberately flooding the country with illegal aliens from the south in order to drive down wages in unskilled jobs. Then they get the government to flood the country with "temporary worker" H-1B visas driving down the wages of professional people. But we always have someone to babble on about the "free" market. What a joke!
Yes there are many wealthy Asians who have their parents hooked up to EBT because they qualify. When I was a kid we were told "work hard and don't take a handout from anybody" but that doesn't translate well to immigrants in USA.
This is what a Romanian immigrant friend told me: the way food banks work is that you show up and they give you a bundle of free food. You can't choose some things and leave behind others, you take the whole box. Romanians in the community calls this the "Free Store" in their local language, and they almost all go there for the free food, if they have a job and need free food or not. Now, what they do is take the food they want, then with the balance they consolidate it and SELL it to Romania, sending it there in shipping containers.
So next time a boyscout visits you looking to gather food for the local food bank, the canned lima beans you donate may end up being sold to Romania.
I called the local media to report on this and they were apparently not interested in the story.
That second-to-last graph is shocking. Witness the aborted attempt to get back to the long term trend line in 2008 that was savagely beaten back.
No, no Buckaroo, Tango is quite clear above, it's a lack of desire to work hard that is the problem. **eyeroll**
We might have heard this story before..or a hundred times
The 58K seems a bit high to "scrape by", but regardless a good article.
Internet
Cable
iPhones + contract (2)
Car loans (3)
Mortgage
Student loans
Groceries
Heat & light
Beer
Cigarettes
Pay-per view
1-900 #'s
3 meals a day at Mckey D's, Church's, or KFC
Nike's
20" chrome "blades"
Ho's
- it does start to add up
the difference 'tween '30's and what's comin' ? blood. the copious blood.
another gem guest post
Expecting an offer from a concern housed in the belly of the beast sometime in the coming months. Irony. But I would be doing God's real work - medical malpractice insurance.
I can't make any money in the market, so I have to upgrade my employment. More irony.
I have searched and can't find any info about a march on Washington to abolish the Federal Reserve. Shouldn't somebody be organizing such event for the 100th on December 23rd? Maybe the Tyler's can get this moving....
Great Goal. Tylers are reporters, it's not upto them, it's upto the People.
"End the FED" is non starter language. It's already associated with Ron Paul, and he's MSM painted with the "crazy" lable.
March on Washington too false flagable, and/or easy to dismiss with "Ron Paul types." May 25 is some protest Monsanto day, it's global yet done on a localized basis.
"End the FED" is a negative statment, how about "replace the FED" or "Real Dollars" or?
Congress won't even audit them, so ending is not going to happen that way without replacing the Washington critters.
The FED itself doesn't need to be ended, rather seek some other legal something to be built around it. I don't know, perhaps Ron Paul knows.
Let the FED sit there with it's balance aheet. Or divide it up amoungst it owners.
Assume all the Golds already been looted.
Today, Saturday, 5/18 Philly:
http://www.cfliberty.org/2013/05/nationwide-end-fed-philly.html?m=1
I live in Philly and never even heard of this event . . .
I'll tell you what's necessary - a new iPhone!
What's good for compulsive consumption is good for Apple is good for America.
That's true for folks who manufacture or sell clothing we don't need, cars that are not required, houses that are too big, overpriced food and absurdly priced "sports equipment". Every company wants to sell something - it's all a matter of preference.
They figured out that the economy can thrive with fewer employees earning good salaries and more people earning a pittance via entitlements.
While asset prices are inflated by continued interventions of monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, boosting Wall Street profits.
/sarc
Great article. All that is missing is the solution.....I suggest we start by taxing all multinational corporations and then using the money to ensure standards of employment (wages/working conditions) are met worldwide. This will stop the modern slave-trade (where companies go to the slaves rather than bringing them to the company) and should force companies to resume paying decent wages to workers in the West. Also, by taxing multinationals we should be able to bring down the debt and to resume normal retirement/medical benefit conditions (ie increasing rather than decreasing access/lowering rather than raising the age of retirement).
I suggest we start by taxing all multinational corporations and then using the money to ensure standards of employment (wages/working conditions) are met worldwide.
Raising taxes never works. Stop buying from multinationals and encourage others to do the same. Divestment is the only solution.
James, I did not suggest raising taxes on multinationals....just start taxing them period. The vast majority of their profits goes untaxed...entirely untaxed. Do you really think that is reasonable? As for not buying from them....how realistic is that for a family who has no choice where they shop and who are forced to buy whatever is on sale? It is easy to say stop buying from multinationals but impossible to do unless you are fairly wealthy and can afford to be picky......
James, I did not suggest raising taxes on multinationals....just start taxing them period. The vast majority of their profits goes untaxed...entirely untaxed.
That's because they are clever. Raising their taxes (taxing them at posted rates would be a major tax hike for many) is a big game, it only affects the smaller players (which is of major benefit to the multinationals). When in history has raising taxes actually changed business practices (in terms of ethical practices)?
On the other hand divestment campaigns have had major success in the past. One of the major contributions to overcoming apartheid in South Africa was the divestment campaign. Reagan and Thatcher bitterly opposed it (as did business) but eventually the businesses had to cave and join with the anti-apartheid folks. The politicians only joined much later (or never depending on which ones).
As for not buying from them....how realistic is that for a family who has no choice where they shop and who are forced to buy whatever is on sale?
I'm not saying everyone stop buying any product from a multinational, of course that's unrealistic. Make your own decisions on what is possible but it doesn't take much. Any loss of profit / revenue terrifies business.
The ONLY way taxing those with wealth helps "poor" folks is through massive government redistribution - something that has been tried over and over and over without long-lasting success. The whole idea of raising taxes, boycotting, etc reminds me of college days when we thought marching solved problems. Supposedly folks on ZH want disposable income - not more down the black hole of debt. It's like the surgeon who scolded Obama at the Press forum said, the object is NOT to punish those with money but to facilitate economic activity and collect enough for the governent to do its necessary tasks.
Boycotting is not the same as raising taxes obviously. Boycotts have a history of success, a minor recent example - a couple years ago certain banks tried to raise their fees all of a sudden outrageously and immediately faced a boycott and were forced to withdraw their proposals.
They still jack up rates illegally (though if laws aren't enforced is it really illegal...?) through price fixing, but that's another story. Boycotts do work.
All thumbs down to your comment are from "future owners" of multinationals.
What kind of brain wiring, if there is a brain to begin with, makes somebody think that way how those corporations operate is OK?
They operate that way due to the special tax loopholes our so-called political leaders have given them. Apply the tax code evenly and fairly to all Americans, and most of the accounting shenanigans and inequality would cease.
True Capitalism hasn't failed; it simply hasn't been tried...
Army of lobbyist swarm a DC for new "laws" to be created. They are paid by whom?
Withot K-Street we may talk about True Capitalism to start with...maybe.
Watch for the chlorine in the pool-not healthy.
They operate that way due to the special tax loopholes our so-called political leaders have given them. Apply the tax code evenly and fairly to all Americans, and most of the accounting shenanigans and inequality would cease.
I'm sure it's the tax code that 'forces' them to hire slave labour in 3rd world countries in factories run by people closely connected to organized crime and human trafficking.
Yep, all the tax code's fault!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/world/asia/bangladesh-garment-industry...
^ that death toll is now at 1100+ and Wal-Mart + Gap (among others) still won't agree to sign onto any new safety requirements because it's not 'financially feasible'
Well, Harrumph...
http://www.fredoneverything.net/GitSome.shtml
Looks like all is going well. The poor are engaged in class warfare and seem to be losing. They are simply too greedy and lazy. Cut their food stamps and eliminate Medicaid. They refuse to work because they have it so good. Hell Sam Walton would just draw benefits if he was young today rather than work and start his business. Americans have it so good in the 47% that they will never work again. They don't even pay any taxes from what I hear.
The rich should leave this country that keeps attacking them with unreasonable tax levels like capital gains rates that are pure theft of hard earned asset gains. Not to mention Obama's giant tax increases on their income tax rates.
SARC! Or MDB has stolen my screen name and avatar!
I've never worked for a "poor guy". Think about that for a minute. SARC? You clearly don't know what it's like to wake up and have your taxes go up by tens of thousands. Perhaps if you were in the higest bracket, you may be able to shed some objectivity on your analysis, not this time though.
Kind of funny that at one time there was no income tax in the U.S., now with state taxes it's firmly over 40% of one's income (highest bracket) and yet that's not enough? Welcome to Canada...only we have a president with his head up his arse.
I need more.
Lets See: If you own the following you are not in proverty, proverty has been created by big business - to make money - big money!
Own a cell phone
Own an IPad
Own a big screen TV
Own a car
Your kids always have new cloths
Go to the movies
Go out to eat
Drink Alchol
Smoke Cigs
Buy Drugs
Eat 3 meals per Day
Buy prepared food either at a deli or forzen -
Etc.
Go to Sudan for a year come back and then think what real proverty is.
Is this how you convince the candidate you are interviewing to take $20K/yr for your Chief Scientist position?
If I want to know what poverty is, I can ask my grandparents and great grandparents. They came in on the ground floor and faced hardship which made them live with: "I want my children to have a better life than me." The people made this country what it is.
"Poverty has been created by big business to make money"
WTF? I'll need an English translation. You have obviously never worked with poor folks. They operate under a different set of life rules than you or I do. Work is not viewed as as soemthing in which to grow or excel. I am told repeatedly that they work and they do. When they want something they get a job, save enough to buy what they want then quit. Most have famllies or communities in which work (not to mention education, planning and savings) are not considered important.
Yes, poor folks have cell phones, cars, large TVs, engage in the taxable sins. They do this with little or no food in the fridge, with junior having no underwear for a year.
Signed up for Medicaid today. I have an engineering degree and made 60-75K/yr up until 2008. I'm 33 years old and will aim for disability next. Whether I feel I am able to work or not is irrelevant. Society deems me disabled by refusing to hire me, so now it must house, feed, and clothe me.
***Signed up for Medicaid today***
Go for it man and don't take any shit about it. It didn't have to be this way in this country. But the corporations have everybody by the balls and they're squeezing. Soon it may be time to fight back. In the mean time take what you need to survive.
Put it in a language that the capitalists can understand:
"As soon as I get the necessary knowledge and capital together, I shall start my own business. This may take a while. Given that I have absolutely no idea how to create customers as is, maybe I have brain damage. This is why I am disabled."
(Or watch the Futurama Episode, Insane In The Mainframe, where someone mentions that being poor was ruled to be a mental illness - I can't remember the exact wording.)
=============================
HomelessCEO wrote:
I think that you and I are in similar circumstances. I, too, am a homeless IT professional, and am very frustrated by the stark refusal of American corporations to hire American-born IT professionals. Today, most corporations will not hire any IT professional who is NOT an immigrant. Freaking unbelieveable. And my relatives continue to believe that I am unemployed because I am unskilled and stupid. I am NOT kidding.
-- Paul D. Bain
PaulBain@PObox.com
======================
To paulbain
What kind of IT professional? Can you program computers? Can you hack computers? (I maintain that if you can program then you can hack. A programmer who can't hack is like a car mechanic who can't swap engines or change spark plugs, but I am out of date with the computer industry. I don't know how it is structured these days.)
If you can program then I'd suggest writing your own software and selling it (again, I'm out of date - don't know how difficult that is to do - esp. if competing with cheap programmers from India or where-ever, plus so much has already been done).
One of our worst indoctrinations is, "Get good grades, get a good job" and we totally forget about starting our own business and being our own boss. (Or getting lots of customers instead of just one - boss = special type of customer ). Of course, starting your own business involves acquiring start-up capital - hence the popularity of zero-up-front-costs "Getting a job".
I'm half way through my life and still haven't got the nerve / knowledge / capital to start my own business. How did that happen, dammit!!!
( I used to fantasize about hacking into a company's computer, putting myself on the payroll, and simply turning up to work. But I never quite got the skillset to do that. Maybe not a good idea these days, but then again ... )
Hope you get some better ideas.
Soon your salaries will be paid with Walmart gift cards
It's a Doggy Daycare recovery. 10 rich people and 100 million workers wiping their precious assholes.
$58,000 a year? UNREAL...! That's a sum I won't see in FOUR years, thanks to financial repression.
Perhaps Americans' expectations of standard of living are a little out of whack?
When you exhibit productivity as dismally low as that of western economies these days, you have to expect living standards to FALL, not be maintained...
@James_Cole. Hey bro, "Wal-Mart Owners" are the public genius. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Even scientists know that QE is bad for earth...
"It's 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby.
Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest pass to Earth on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. PDT."
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-asteroid-1998-q...
Well a consumer economy lives on debt. When you consume more than you produce, you reduce savings, and extract more debt. Pretty simple. Monetary inflation and the incentive to go into depth started when the gold standard was abolished, and really took off in the mid 1980's, where Americans decided to go spend more money from their savings, so the 80's economy was a economy based on increased consumption, and consumption of credit versus investment of credit that produces more wealth. It's basic economics. If you remember the Valley Girls of the 1980s, which is uniquely 1980's, just as much as Ronald Reagan was, well they were teen girls who loved to go shopping. For this you can blame US government, and the Federal Reserve. Economies with savings have true purchasing power in real economic context, unlike the current global monetary system of floating exchange rate manipulation, and standard of living is created by enhanced purchasing power, cheaper prices, which is the reward of productivity that produces more supply of goods. Savings is deferred consumption today for enchanced consumption tomorrow. Economies come from the past, exist in the present, but look toward the future for growth. Keynesians have no concept of time whatsoever. They always think in the present, as neoklassicals it seems.
Monetary inflation creates the same type of incentive that cheap credit creates. Where credit is loans, the amount of money supply, or base creates the incentive to prefer immediate consumption versus enhanced consumption in the future in the form of better consumer good, or through investment. This distorts the time preference of a economy, and makes it unproductive. In Zimbabwe if you had your hands on money, you'd be lucky enough to get a pack of chewing gum if you spent it fast enough.
At least until the USPS goes completely bankrupt.
G20 Governments All Agreed To Cyprus-Style Theft Of Bank Deposits … In 2010
By Colin McKay
Global Research, May 18, 2013
barnabyisright.com
http://www.globalresearch.ca/g20-governments-all-agreed-to-cyprus-style-...