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7 Things The Middle-Class Can't Afford Anymore
Authored by Erika Rawes, The Cheat Sheet; originally posted at USA Today,
Though there is some debate over the exact income a middle class household brings in, we do have an idea of who the middle class are — most working class people. Today's bourgeoisie is composed of laborers and skilled workers, white collar and blue collar workers, many of whom face financial challenges. Bill Maher reminded us a few months back that 50 years ago, the largest employer was General Motors, where workers earned an equivalent of $50 per hour (in today's money). Today, the largest employer — Wal-Mart — pays around $8 per hour.
The middle class has certainly changed. We've ranked a list of things the middle class can no longer really afford. We're not talking about lavish luxuries, like private jets and yachts. The items on this list are a bit more basic, and some of them are even necessities. The ranking of this list is based on affordability and necessity. Therefore, items that are necessity ranked higher, as did items that a larger percentage of people have trouble paying for.
Vacations
A vacation is an extra expense that many middle-earners cannot afford without sacrificing something else. A Statista survey found that this year 54% of people gave up purchasing big ticket items like TVs or electronics so they can go on a vacation. Others made sacrifices like reducing or eliminating their trips to the movies (47%), reducing or eliminating trips out to restaurants (43%), or avoiding purchasing small ticket items like new clothing (43%).
New vehicles
Very few people who earn the median income can afford to buy a new car or truck. Interest.com recently analyzed the prices of new cars and trucks, as well as the median incomes across more than two dozen major cities, and found that new cars and trucks were simply not affordable to most middle-earners.
"Median-income families in only one major city [Washington DC] can afford the average price Americans are paying for new cars and trucks nowadays." As of 2013, new cars are priced at $32,086, according to the study. Mike Sante, Interest.com's managing editor reminds us, "just because you can manage the monthly payment doesn't mean you should let a $30,000 or $40,000 ride gobble up all such a huge share of your paycheck."
To pay off debt
These debt statistics come from Debt.org: "More than 160 million Americans have credit cards." "The average credit card holder has at least three cards." "On average, each household with a credit card carries more than $15,000 in credit card debt."
Not only do we have large amounts of credit card debt, we also have student loans, mortgages, cars, and medical debts. Our debt is growing faster than our income, and many middle class workers have trouble staying afloat. Money-Zine evaluated debt growth and income growth over the past few decades and found that "back in 1980, the consumer credit per person was $1,540, which was 7.3% of the average household income of $21,100. In 2013, consumer debt was $9,800 per person, which was 13.4% of the average household income of $72,600. This means debt increased 70% faster than income from 1980 through 2013."
Emergency savings
To provide ourselves with a degree of financial security, we are supposed to have emergency savings to protect ourselves in the event of job loss, illness, or some other catastrophe. Most members of the middle class don't have at least six months of emergency savings, however, and some working people have no such savings.
A Bankrate survey found that only around one out of four households have six months of emergency money saved, and many of them are in the higher income groups. Another one-fourth have no emergency savings at all, and the remaining household have a small to moderate amount of savings, but not enough to cover six months of expenses.
Retirement savings
If you reach the retirement age with little or no money saved, Social Security is probably not going to be enough to cover your basic needs. Even if you want to work for your entire life, you have no way of knowing whether or not you will be physically capable of doing so.
Although having a lack of a retirement savings is a risky move, so many people bet on double zero, just hoping that things will work out in their favor. While some members of the middle class neglect this aspect of financial planning because they are procrastinating, there are also some workers who cannot afford to set this money aside. Nearly half of those who don't save for retirement say it's because they simply don't have the money.
As of late, around 20% of people near 65 have not saved anything for retirement at all, and the majority of people — 59% — worry that they don't have enough money saved for retirement, according to a Gallup Poll.
Medical care
Medical care is a basic necessity and something we'd think would be affordable for someone earning a middle income. A Forbes article published data indicating that workers in large companies — many of whom are members of the middle class — "face nearly $5,000 in premiums, co-payments, deductibles and other forms of co-insurance."
During the past few years, these costs have had a large impact on working Americans. A report by Feeding America found that a shocking 66% of households say they've had to choose between paying for food and paying for medical care — 31% say they have to make that choice each and every month.
Dental work
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "the U.S. spends about $64 billion each year on oral health care — just 4% is paid by Government programs." About 108 million people in the U.S. have no dental coverage and even those who are covered may have trouble getting the care they need, the department reports.
Oftentimes, people will purchase medical coverage and forgo dental because it's so expensive. Plus, dental insurance may cover only 50% of the more expensive procedures, like crowns and bridges. This leaves those who have insurance with large co-payments.
In many cases, middle-earners will delay or even forego some of these procedures in efforts to save on costs. According to the CDC, nearly one in four adults between the ages of 20 and 64 have untreated dental caries (like cavities or infections).
* * *
If only they had listened to Janet Yellen and found rich parents or bought businesses....!
But they are distracted...
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Vacation and new car? How about the steep increase in the cost of both rifles and ammunition: A man used to be able to get a $250 AK variant and pay $99 for thousand rounds for it. Now that's a real concern...
I remember when 5.56 mm ammo was $1.80 (1000 rds) for $90.00
But people get broke all the time in everything, deals happen, I bought a JM Marlin 336xlr 30-30 shot 12 times for $375...Load my own LeverEvolution rounds for .42 cents a copy pew pew
I've gotten so many deals on stuff...21cu. ft. Refer less than a year old $400 with ice maker and 2 yr extended warranty
Electric Dryer new, dented $100
If you shop around you can buy nice stuff, use it and sell it for just as much if not more than you paid. This is a buyers market for crap.
The long term implications of poor job creation are massive. We are seeing that a huge number of people have dropped out of the work force. Often these people have little in the way of savings, this means the burden of caring for them will be transferred to society. If to many people shift into this category we will slowly wear down through attrition. Finding a fair way to share and balance the work load that goes on every day is one of the most important problems facing our modern world.
Failure to discover a solution to this dilemma bodes poorly for our consumer driven economy and adds to the toxic problem of inequality. Many of the numbers and budget projections of the government have been based on far better employment numbers then we are currently facing or will be facing if this continues. The article below looks at the long-term implication of poor job creation and how it will drastically impact in a negative way both the wealth and future of America.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/09/implications-of-poor-job-creation.html
Let's bring back the 50/hr jobs to anyone willing to work. BAM...food stamps gone. BAM no more section 8. So much solved so easily.
Oh yeah...how to pay for this? Easy again. 91% tax rate on those that don't know what to do with their billions. Hmmmm, where did I see this before? (hint 50's and 60's)
A pot to piss in?
I heard a hypothesis that they want to document all the illegals to get to the SS taxation. I guess they dont pay
any income tax in their bracket to be concerned with that. I am surprised they consider the system to be viable even long enough to
worry about such schemes.
There is analysis that they will get 98% out of all lifetimes, if you consider they own all the non discretionary statute contracts, like
auto insurance etc, primarily through taxation, interest, currency devaluation, inflation, probate. Thing about strategies not to
participate in those things. So my major theme there is not participate in mortgage interest. I cant do anything about taxation but
maximize 401k and IRA adn then lose that in financialization ponzies anyway, whats the point.
About probate, I have no meaninful assets. What I do I concentrate into technologies that passes to beneficiary outside probate, whole
life insurance and annuity. So when I start taking SS and 401k out, I will put that into the whole life and it passes tax free outside
probate. Really this thing is so under understood and misunderstood, wrap your head around it. Everything "they" think about it is
wrong. Whole life is an answer. I am combing through my spending patterns to see what can be cut to get a third policy running.
This is for people with some means obviously but what if parents understood it, helped their kids break away from the beast.
All those yound adults in mom's basement, do they spend $100 on a smartphone contract, that is $73000 in whole life over 30 years,
just one element of waste.
What other waste is there?
What we have to change is the expectations and meaning of time. To replace waste with time value.
That is what did it, it takes a life time, not the orwellian
live for now.
Wait till you get to be 60 and the cost of insurance in the policy begins to skyrocket. I had 3 whole lifes, still have one. Good forced savings and protection for the family.
Do they tax Gold at the bottom of the lake?
Of course term is impossibly expensive past about 50, at least start whole life by 31.
It can be structured for high cash savings, with a convertible term attached, need a good agent. My agent
said 98% of policies dont have the paid up additions cash rider so the agents dont even know how it works.
But the point I am trying to make is for parents learn this inside and out and it takes some sincere interest to
explore the intricacies, and start teaching children young and get them started young,
it is in totality, personal austrian economics with self banking. What more do they need intellectually to figure out
all the other ponzies and fraud that are draining them.
This the season to downsize.
Make one of these. Put wheels on it. Tow it to your favorite place and sleep in it.
http://www.scarefx.com/project_coffin_2.html
Unfortunately I'm going to need another piece of siding, I haven't downsized enough to fit.
Because all free capital is sucked up by a small group .
The great Disturber arises . Like Napoleon .
Confiscation of accumulated surpluses .
Then usually applied to warfare.
Some unintended spinoffs.
The pulse jet of societies .
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2012/07/order-using-chaos.html
Way too pessimistic, things are bad enough they don't need to be exaggerated. $8/hr at Walmart is still not mean, median, or mode. Somebody is driving a shitload of new-ish cars around on LA freeways. Remember the top 10% is doing at least all right, and even the median has only lost about 10%. It's not the end of the world yet, but it is getting to be the end of hope. We shipped 10,000,000 jobs to China and then wonder wtf, really? Does anybody in either party ever even talk about it?
It's not the end of the world, not yet, but I think I can see it on the horizon.
We see.
Charlie I Sheen - Millionaire. Enjoying the coke & the whores.
They don't talk about it because both parties staunchly support it.
Who really benefitted from factories moving overseas? The municipalities where the working taxpayers resided?
The workers themselves?
Or the factory owners in and unto themselves?
I've seen it first hand, I've heard the rationalizations and I've seen the aftermath.
Here's a list for one county in North Carolina.http://remembercliffside.com/history/the_county/courier_series/courier_t...
What used to be a very prosperous county is now impoverished. The only remaining employers that pay decent wages are the state (local, county, state, edu), and health care. No layoffs there. No need for 'increased productivity to maintain the bottom line" there. They just put guns to our heads when they fall short -- be it directly (road pirates) or indirectly by borrowing huge sums of money in the name of county residents.
IOW, if you can't get in with the good ole boy network, you're pissing in a cup for 29 hours at minimum wage.
Welcome to the new American Dream!
Wait until Christmas retail numbers I will wager that the sales will be off by double digits and the administration will blame the weather, ISIS, Ebola whatever they can get the sheeple to believe.
In reality the value of the dollar has been so significantly reduced that even those that have enough to pay the bills and blow the rest on Chinese trash and trinkets won't be able to afford much from retailers.
Triple dip depression?
I know a couple other things they can't afford... navel gazing and whining
Yeah, those "$50" per hour wages priced the US union worker out of the world market and drove GM into bankruptcy.
Did anyone stop to think those big union wages and benefits increase the price of things you buy, so in the end YOU pay the big wages.
Building cars that are "priced" in the small house range does help the equation much either...
"Yeah, those "$50" per hour wages priced the US union worker out of the world market and drove GM into bankruptcy.
Did anyone stop to think those big union wages and benefits increase the price of things you buy, so in the end YOU pay the big wages."
Whatever dipshit. It wasn't the salary, the workers were busy playing cards on the job. I've had something close to that and I busted my ass at work.
Funny how Japan and Germany's CEOs have the lowest salary/average employee and they have the most internationally competative exports.
As I get older I see that people with businesses generally stay fairly nimble, although the plumber up the street expanded to 8 trucks during the last boom into 2007 - he got seriously squeezed but is still in business. Cubicle dwellers all seem to get chucked on the street at the same time - like aerospace engineers and software engineers, or defense workers/contractors if the Dept of War ever cuts back. Very smart, well-educated professionals, but an oversupply is an oversupply. I can lower my fees and shorten my delivery times which means working harder for less, but that is the way it is. Cubicle dwellers seem to project the future as a straight line; self-employed know the future is bent My ex-partner retired at 44 yo. I like what I do and I'm teaching my son. I thought of retiring in 2000 and glad I didn't; I didn't see QE and financial repression in the crystal ball. When the Fed says QE and money printing are free that is not true - the prudent savers that provided capital for econoomic growth took it hard in the ass for msny years.
QQQBall, what trade/line of work are you in? I need to get out of the corporate life. My youngest is interested in what I do and I can bring him into the corporate culture or set up a small private practice and work together perhaps. You make some good points.
Going through the stuff my parents left when the died - born in the late 20's grew up in the 30's and 40's.
My great grand parents were renting a house for $35 a month on LI in 1940 - typical salaries were $1000-2000 a year (the 1940 census has wage information as well as rent/house costs)
My grandparents bought a (not so great) two family house - maybe 1500sf with the unfinished attic that was used for bedrooms - just north of the Bronx - for $12,000 in 1948. Annual income for a printer was $6,000 a year
My parents bought the same place for $28,000 20 years later he was making about $12,000 a year then
My other grandparents paid $16,000 for an 800 sf house in Pasadena in 1964 - a good used car - maybe 2 years old would cost $1000-2000 (info discussed in a letter from the time)
HOWEVER - the letters I read through also made clear that ONE car was the norm - and thought of as being 'expensive', with new cars unusual, most bought used - while day to day issues with money were routine. Much talk of long distance phone call bills and NEVER calling before evening hours cam into effect. Even discussion of grandparents fronting the cost of a world's fair visit for my family in 1964 (I remember that vividly - and NOT buying a couple of desired model kits (2 $1 each) so I'd have 'spending money' for souveneirs. BUT families relied on ONE income - Moms were home with kids.
The 'middle class' was not the idyllic experience often portrayed. New 'Levittown' style houses were 'cheap' but built cheaply. They were also SMALL. But to me - a kid from a long time blue collar 'trades' family, they were 'new' and the mid level white collar types in them were 'rich' in comparison. A color TV was a really BIG deal - and no more than one set in a house. Dishwashers were rather rare. Vacations - IF your family took one - were drives to the beach or 'mountains'. Plane trips among my contemporaries were unusual for any reason.
Fast forward to 1980 - MY first job with an engineering degree, highest paid in my graduating major, was $21,000 a year. An accounting major would be getting mid teens. A good friend - law school grad clerkign in Federal Court was making $14,000 a year (an admittedly low 'dues paying salary' soon to be followed by big bucks workgin for a top tier law firm).
Fast forward to 2004 and the house that sold for $12,000 in 1948, $28,000 in 1968 sold for over $500,000 (though after a complete renovation). My wife's form pays a receptionist (hs education) more than $21,000 - a starting engineering degree today comes in around $70,000-80,000. (and the candy bar that cost 5 cents when I was 5, 50 cents when I was 20 now costs over $100 with the hot dogs I lived on in college at 99 cents a package going for close to $4.
BUT I remember 'school shopping' in the early 60's when you got two sets of shirt/pants (plus hand me downs if you were not the oldest), one new pair of shoes and one pair of sneakers. A Boy Scout uniform was a serious expense. Today i see people who are at a far lower level economically (single mother with a crap job) spending ridiculous amounts on clothes and sneakers - living far better than we did. Not sure how that happens.
Inflation has been INSANE over the course of my lifetime for things like housing and land - and food as well. However wages have not kept up.
BUT in a relative sense, Clothes are cheaper. Appliances are cheaper. But I mean 'cheap' in all ways - they cost less but don't last nearly as long.
Over the last 60 years we saw the 'middle class' do far better for a time - peaking maybe in the mid 1960's but then start losing ground. One salary families gave way to two (or more) wage families. Houseing costs skyrocketed - and still are high in places where jobs are available (though cheap where unemployment is rampant). Buying power of wages has dropped since the 60's - at an accelerating rate - though some items have gotten much 'cheaper' and expecttions far higher.
Thank you for this story. I am very young (25) and have a family. I can tell you, our expesnes are just far too much for what my family makes. I regret a lot of my decisions and I know my wife does too, cause we talk about the things we purchased or invested in which we should have not.
take your fucking responsabilities, sell your fucking apple products, grow your own food, stop compulsive buying, your country lobotomized your population, it is time to react.
you not alone, shit start to hit the fan in france too.
The cartoon is funny, but the reality of the matter is by no means funny IMHO. Most days I don't understand why the American people don't just rise up and overthrow the Government of the United States of America
based on economic logic and mathematical logic alone? Mathematics is not a pretend discipline like Equilibrium Economics has become. That is the beauty of mathematics as opposed to 'Economics'. Present day Wall Street is empirical proof that American academics do not understand basic mathematics at the lowest possible levels of possible understanding. In terms of the logic of mathematics it is not understandable that mathematicians are not waging war against TBTF or the FED prognosticators. Business Schools are not saying squat about the substrate
of a now defunct model of post-Glass-Steagall Neo-Liberalism that has failed to protect the World against pirates, and theives, and looting of the so-called 'middle class'. If the upper tier from the 'middle class' is classless with regard to ethics on wealth transfer from the middle class to the ruling classless kleptocrats why do we define them based on 'class' distinctions? The one per cent are not 'classy' or particularly ethical, wtf? Marx was right about corporatists IMHO.
Even if you have a pool of money sitting with institutions and your retirement is set...you still can't sleep at night because now your worried about the institution and whether or not they can survive the next big fall,
you are worried about bailins when they just take your deposits one day and give it a nice haircut......
The social contract has been broken for a long time...whether you did the right things and was a prudent saver the zirp flirting with a decade now has screwed you...
Whether you invested wisely and have a decent retirement savings you still worried that it will just be taken...despite your cushy retirement...the future has been robbed from you and it is clearly dystopian....
You can stack and own precious metals but remember without a lot of iron and steel backing you up...it will just be taken from you Ina post collapse world...so you gotta worry about that too...
Either way no matter what you did...you have sleepless nights and worry...despite being conservative or prudent....
Your futures dreams are just a Ponzi scheme....
This what I am talking about.
I took two small pensions out early and those go right into whole life.
When i take SS and 401k out, to the extent I dont spend it, those can go right into whole life and annuity.
So if I have a whole life with a good cash value, I borrow that out to open a new whole life.
The retirement money is going back into pay the loan on the borrowed sum of the 1st whole life.
A few ways to skin the cat but yes I am eager to get what I can out of the steeet, the soonest and get it into the
private mutuals, these are one degree of seperation away from the wallsteet-beltway mafia operations.
But will still be involved with the same commercial paper instruments. I just trust the private mutual companies
better.
NWO has a real cluster fuck on their hands.
5,000 Germans protested less peacefully on Sunday in Cologne against radical Islam.
The protests were organized and had a simple message to ISIS & Co.
"Go the fuck home"
cynicalskeptic: Inflation has been INSANE over the course of my lifetime
You don't say...
One pound of red bell peppers is $9.80 here.
Fucking insane.
Two organically grown green bell peppers $4.89.
Hahahahah
Yup, no such thing as inflation.
Not sure where you're shopping but I typically pick up green bell peppers for $0.50/ea. Of course, they're not "organic" but what exactly is the difference were talking about here?
Dude buy a Truck. You have found The Grail...
I grew my own bell peppers, green red and yellow this year, still producing as we speak, eat some every day and blanch and freeze the excess, hardly any effort at all, serrano peppers, same story. Get a shovel and some seeds, good exercise and you don't have to mow useless grass in the area for your garden. Yank a weed now and then.
If you don't feed the machine it won't gobble you up. Buy a modest home, drive the same vehicle for 10 years, eschew the credit cards, pay cash for what you do get. I make a decnt income, not 6 figures but adequate. My husband took 7 months off last winter and we were fine BECAUSE WE DON'T CARRY MASSIVE DEBT. This article (other than health care which is the shame of the USA) is predicated on debt being an inhibitor of lifestyle. How much 999 can you buy for not spending $30k on a new car every four years? Sheesh.
Can we keep the Jimmy Buffet 'Margaritaville Cargo Party Machine'?
Not in Copomo
Floride in the water has done it's job in the US.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/08/07/effects-of...
A review of brain studies involving the use of fluoride has concluded that one of the adverse effects of fluoride exposure on children is damage to their neurological development.1 According to the Harvard researchers, children who lived in high-fluoride areas had "significantly lower IQ than those in low fluoride areas," with the authors noting:
Flouride may have nothing to do with it.
The school sytems in most of the US are horrid compared to the rest of the world. Have family down south and their kids are dumb as rocks - godawful high schools and state colleges aren't worth the cost. You have the occasional kid that survives bad schools but they're rare. My kids did a summer program fo G&T - they had scholarship kids as well. Three weeks at a college campus to cover a year's worth of a HS class or a semester of a college class. One girl was from CA's central valley. Father was a meth addict, mother barely getting by rising 3 kids. Her HS was officially 'failing'. She LIVED for the 3 weeks a year in this program but it was only 3 weeks and couldn't make up for the lousy HS she went back to where being 'smart' was a liability - and damn hard to even show given the crappy level of classes. How do get into ANY college from crapholes like that?
While our public system here in NY burbs isn't nearly as good as they think they are, it's FAR better than most places - in part because you do have educated and involved parents. Having said that I'd like to note that maybe 10% really take advantage of the system and do really well while 15% mange to blow it big time and will make a mess of their life despite the head start they've had, with the rest succeeding to varied degrees (the variation largely due to the level of parental oversight and involvement - it DOES make a difference). Nonetheless you have close to 90% of graduates going to 4 year colleges - with the top 10% going to top schools. Things being what they are, it's damn hard to get ANYONE into Ivies and such but we do pretty well. My two kids - 2nd in their classs (of roughly 250) got into a school routinely in the top 10 nationwide. AND I've been renovating a 1920's house for 2o years - though I've been pretty obsessive about controlling dust - and lead levels. Still, the water line into the house from the street is lead (most were originlly). Just don't use the water first thing in the morning for formula.
I suspect that environmental factors CAN be an issue but basics like genetics, education (of kids and parents) and another factor - the AGE of the parents - has a major influence. If you're building with good materials, you can do great things. If you're starting with lower grade stuff you can only do so much.
And don't discount the age (and financial status) of parents. Broke parents don't have the time to parent - they're struggling to get by. Older parents are in better shape financially, usually better educated and usually try much harder (though not always). Well off parents are often more focused on their kids - if only becasue kids are status items too (MY kid went to Penn... lol, seriously, that is some of the motivation for some, but at least tehy ARE paying attention to their kids) ANd better off parents can pay to make up for any shortfalls - nannies, tutors and such - it DOES make a difference. Really young parents may have nice iable sperm and eggs BUT often are in horrible shape financially and ill euipped to raise kids. . But wait too long and you've got real issues with older sperm and eggs - I suspect it DOES have an influence on how kids turn out. Wait too long and you end up adopting - going back to too young parents. In that case you have college educated parents adopting a kid conceived in the back seat of a car with a 16 year old mother otherwise destined to be a waitress and a father who maybe goes to tech school in nowhere USA (not joking - have seen it)
What would Jack Ma say?
"You're poor and, you deserve it."
Who cares what the paragraphs get across, this is for they lady shooter that makes the rest look like wallpaper. A sigourney but still feminine. Makes me grin on the line. I squint a little too.
Heard this on the way home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47y5bo8wtqM&sns=em
Don't get your dick get covered in toothpaste zh, it's like dry ice
I get the point of the article, but a few observations: Typical used car is better than new 30 years ago, looking at average credit card debt is meaningless due to the millionaires skewing the numbers and in general Social Security should meet basic needs unless cut. Good cartoon.
From one side of the mouth people say SS should only be a “last resort” in the plan…
The other, ‘why won’t SS give granny a COLA, we don’t want her living in our garage.’
All SS should provide is room in a corporate tenement.
Hey, if grannies people do not want to care for her, ice her! Ice her I say! Get her off my back, she’s not my problem…
Global Gaza. I remember seeing some reference years ago by Greenscam stating that their goal was to get the average Amerikan salary down to $25K. Well, they've done it.
"
7 Things The Middle-Class Can't Afford Anymore, the conundrum is then, they are no longer middle class.Medical is a whole other thing, btw. Insurance or not (especially with massive deductibles), a visit to the doctor with a prescription is liable to cost you $500. Anything serious will quickly run through your $5k deductible and even with 80% copay might cost you a year's wages, and if you don't have that much cash handy it's bk for you. That's medicine today and Obamacare barely touches it.
This was NOT medicine 50 years ago, they hadn't even invented all the fancy stuff, and you would just die instead, solvent but dead. Hard choices, me hearties.
People die today too, and will continue to do so.
Just now they leave nothing to anyone except the bill collectors.
I cant handle a used car. The extended warranty is $2000 every 3 years, the tires, battery, etc,
a breakdown is catastrophic for someone that has to get to work. My arthritis and importance of my
job is too much for me do to the heavy work myself anymore.
I bought a $30k car 2008, leased 3 years, then bought out, payments $360 lease, then $408 buy out.
Only 5,000 of them made, 2008 VW R32, it is worth 1/2 residual now at 6 years old, price went up just a little for
last two years. I will keep this one a good 10 years. I might even keep it forever like old guys do,
and get the new model just like it in the diesel version when it comes out in 1.5 years.
So I did it again for my wifes car, $38k Toyota Avalon Hybrid, she pays 1/2 out of her low income. It should be a keeper,
she is not one to think she needs a new one again.
Sometimes its ok to get a good car. If it is good and has the resale and is kept a good long time.
I ran an Acura, $350 lease for 4 years and 80k miles, price $26.5K, trade allowance $21k.
Whearas the like Honda Accord was $325 lease, sometimes less costs more, dont be fooled on that.
It has to be a good car with good residual resale and those are rare and not always the flashy hot
new gizmo, stout timeless stuff that fits the right price target and is still contemporary in several years.
The hot flashy new style will look stupid in a few years, get classic stuff.
And not a rediculous expensive car that is really not worth it which might be BMW or Mercedes, and
I have nothing against that if that is the kind of money you have for that. But the good resale is in the
price point with more buyers available.
And the like VW model is $10k less than the equivalent Audi, not Audi either.
I did good with VW and Acura, they say Toyato is good resale. And I really take care of them, hand wash,
polish, all that. It might not bring alot more money but your the one that gets the bid.
Then I saw some stats, the median car loan is only $100 less than my wife's $38k car, for just ordinary cars,
that must be the effect of subprime.
A very high does of Calcium and magnesium works for Arthritis.
BTW- I LOVE the college grad hating crowd boomer losers that gets a DEPRECIATING ASSET on an equity line on a house you can't afford with money that doesn't exist- which is worth twice the cost of my college education. THEN! Brags about how "conservative" they are. No need for warranty, no maintennance, no DMV visits, no insurance, no price inelastic gas tax....btw- I've gotten used cars. I'm related to their owners, it works out fine.
volkswagens have terrible interiors. toyota is the only company that builds engines with internal timing chains (small car) a timing belt failure can ruin the whole engine.
WRONG in part.
Many common Nissan engines also use timing chain such as their 2.5L I4, and their VQ series engines (3.0L -3.5L- 3.7L)
Changing the Timing Belt on a FWD car is a royal pain in the ass IMO. Just did one a few weeks ago. It's not a complicated job, just a PITA due to space constraints unless you want to pull the motor.
Do not want Hondas/interference engines with rubber belts. Had an Acura Integra way back when. Great reliable car but the goddamned timing belt change cost a fortune.
VQ engines FTMFW!
Amazing, with our $ 10k Yaris we reach every destination like with a real car, reach every top of a mountain without sweating but sitting, are not forced to carry the suitcases by hand, stay dry inside during heavy rain, have it comfortably warm inside when it's snowing and freezing outside, have it cool inside when it's hot outside and with the coupling device it even can transport 1500 pounds. Too bad that it's not a car.
Don't confuse the plebs.
I decided to buy a used G37S 6 M/T (rear wheel drive), 2 y/o with 20k on the clock. It cost me less than a stripped accord with A/T (a horrible choice for long term ownership BTW).
Not a hard choice and the INfiniti will still be rocking and rolling when that Accord is in the junk yard with a dead transmission.
So many A/T cars go to scrap when the trans fails because replace/rebuild cost exceeds value of car.
MT? Not so much. Clutches should last life of engine and it is very rare for M/T to fail, abuse notwithstanding.
While it is quite common for A/T to fail without warning.
Why else have mfrs all but eliminated M/T but because MT cars are simpler and don't require as much service.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Some of us can't drive stick, unfortunately.
Everything people are having trouble affording is controlled by the government. The government just can't help itself. It is a cabal of kleptos. They took it all and then discovered that they could borrow it all too. Now they steal from the unborn and draw voter support from the undead. The voters that are still breathing just can't stop voting for what sounds good. They don't connect the two dots between the people they elect and the pain they feel. They don't connect the two dots between the media they watch and the hopelessness they feel.
It is a cabal of Fabian sociopaths and non white racists. Doesn't have a long time to go, thats why Obama has to specially import Central Americans, Mexicans, Liberians (positve or negative), etc....
Here's How I Afford ALL of These Things:
Vacations - Sometimes I go downtown and windowshop
New Vehicle - Last year I bought a new bicycle.
Pay Off Debt - Don't have any
Medical Care - Whiskey and Advil
Dental Care - Toothbrush
Emergency Savings - I have a jar of dimes that's about half full
Retirement Savings - Um....
Don't forget to floss.
we also can't afford classes in Madarin, Russian, Arabic---to speak to our trading partners because the economy is no longer domestic.
USA: saying the middle class is dying is a "conspiracy theory"
Fuck the middle class. The so-called middle class is nothing but working class and they have been heavily brainwashed to work hard. Go fuck themselves, wage-slaves.
Let me quote:
"The paying of compliments is a middle-class convention, for this class needs the assurance compliments provide. In the upper class there’s never any doubt of one’s value, and it all goes without saying. A British peer of a very old family was once visited by an artistic young man who, entering the dining room, declared that he’d never seen a finer set of Hepplewhite chairs. His host had him ejected instantly, explaining, “Fellow praised my chairs! Damned cheek!” Dining among the uppers, one does not normally praise the food, because it goes without saying that the hostess would put forth nothing short of excellent. Besides, she’s not cooked it."
— Paul Fussell, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System
You left out 1) food costs, 2) fuel for anything [home, car, truck], and 3) government appetite for your money through hidden taxes and fees that strip your ability to save anything. And if you do happen to be able to save anything you get 0 interest thanks to Ms. Yoda and the Fed. In other words, the middle class is totally fucked - you're either climbing into the upper class or you're sliding into the lower class.
www.traderzoo.mobi
The rest of the world is paying for the ponzi-empire now. We Americans will pay later. And boy will we pay.
An American, not US subject.
"My guillotine has bills outstanding against the pols, crats, funcs, and banksters"
Perhaps I haven’t found it in the history books, but when was this Golden Age when the Middle Class could afford vacations, new cars, quality dental care, etc., except for that brief post-WWII era when the US had the advantage of not having a blown-up production base, and when no one gave a shit if Chinese or Indians starved to death?
What everyone really seems to be upset about is that humanity is returning to the mean in terms of relative lifestyle, and that non-highly skilled labor has no pricing power. Well, that has been the case for the masses pretty much since Oldavai Gorge, except for this recent blink of an eye. Welcome back to the Old Normal! Did you forget history?
We had a good run, but it wasn’t the norm. It was an aberration. We got spoiled, and then we did what the typical Wall Street analyst does, which is project the present or very recent past into an infinite future. We came to the belief that we had some birthright to live as well or better than our parents. Ain’t gonna happen. We already had Peak Lifestyle.
Everything about which the Doomer Crowd here complains each and every day ad nauseum are either unrealistic fantasies (like any of you would be doing better if we had a gold standard), or are the stopgap measures societies took to extend the good times for as long as possible (debt, fiat, active Central Banking---symptoms, not causes of what ails us).
Labor is in surplus. That is what is driving everything. Efficiency is on the rise, which makes labor even more redundant. Cut out fiat, the Fed, fractional reserve, whatever…it will change absolutely nothing. None of you would be better off, none of you would get a better job, and not a single additional person in Greece or Spain or France would get a job either. Virtually none of you is necessary to a functioning society. Neither am I, but unlike most of you folks here, I know I was born at a good time, in a good place, in the right color and gender. I know I was lucky, so I don’t carry the false anger that makes most of you hate everything, especially your own increasingly miserable lives. That Old Normal is a letdown to those who feel entitled.
The period 1950 to about 2005 was the absolute peak of human comfort and ease, especially in OECD countries. There was never an easier time in all of human history to succeed and live a pleasurable life. The unskilled or the barely skilled, who had the good luck to have been whelped within the borders of a highly developed country like the US, had virtually no excuse to be anything but successful. In particular, white males coming to adulthood during that five plus decade period probably had to go out of their way, or just be complete fuck-ups, to fail.
It’s now over. Absent a rare and necessary skill, the lifestyle of an OECD citizen is going to drop to the level of a developing world citizen. The undeserved Birth Advantage (low-skill worker getting popped out in a highly developed nation) has been repealed. Most people no longer feel they owe anything to a person simply because the person materialized within the same man-made borders. Why should they? It’s not like any of you care about me or I give any more of a shit about any of you than I do some female living in rural Bangladesh. In fact, I probably prefer her, because she doesn’t feel entitled and isn’t constantly whining. She accepts the inherent unfairness of existence and deals with it. We all got spoiled and held our leaders to a higher standard that we hold Gods/the Universe. Is it fair you were born the way you were born? Go complain to The Man, since He did it.
There is historical precedent, or a good example, for what is happening now, albeit for this example there was a better resolution than anyone today is going to get. In the mid-19th Century, Cyrus McCormick built his combine. It could do in a day what it previously had taken fifty men a week to do. Most of the agrarian labor force was suddenly made redundant. Lucky for them there was something called the Industrial Revolution, so they had a place to go. All we’ve got is the Social Networking Revolution, and it is anything but labor intensive.
The equivalent of a thousand McCormick combines are materializing today in virtually every field of endeavor. As humanity approaches the Singularity, this trend will accelerate. International lifestyles are going to meet in the middle. India and China (and that Bangladeshi female) will rise a bit; the US, EU and other developed country labor forces are going down. A lot.
Sure the Fed and all the financial machnations are adding to the problem, but their total impact is neglible compared to the reality of massive human redundancy. If anything, they've prolonged the party a bit, but will make the initial hangover more painful. It was going to be painful regardless. We're just living in the proverbial interesting times.
The elite, however, will do what they have done in every economic iteration in history, which is to find a way to come up trumps. Darwin always Rules.
Everyone has their scope of experience. Basically what I always saw going on around me and particularly people's
behavior and beliefs, was incompatible with reality. It was all superstition, some form of mind control I figured
helped by the tv.
I was working since age 10, pumping gas for a $1 an hour under the table, then legitimate min wage at age 14.
Kids cant get that shot with min wage and child labor laws.
I was the night mechanic at 16, they left me stuff they couldnt figure out. I was the line mechanic 2nd seat at
age 18 and paid through college. So I did a lot that none of the new world knows about, work, making your way.
Really sad.
I saw my wacko leftist female family disfunctional and knew I had to learn how to discern reality,
obviously everything they beleived was in opposition of the natural world.
Fiercely independent I always went against the grain and did the hard thing that
led to discoveries, life lessons, talent.
Many the engineers I worked with over the years were just stupid, didnt know how things worked.
I wasnt so good with the books and tests, maybe they were. I experimented with reality.
The human condition is really pitiful. How do you teach them that, you cant fix stupid.
Really sad, they thumb their Iphones at $100 a month contract. At times I could break out I stayed in positions that made me
indespensible for the future, building something deferring the future.
Forego the immediate self worship for permanence and sustainability. So now I made it to the pinnacle of what I thought
my career should be, the expert, trusted, respected, paid. It was a long road, a long time. They dont get that.
It is all about the understanding of time value. Yet I always think humbly, by the grace of god.
I think it is other things, the education, scandalous. How are these educators qualified if they never existed in
a natural world.
Alot of that seemed planned, like it was sabotage. I figured it out early and self educated, who does that?
It wasnt that hard, I just observed that everything everyone did and beleived was in opposition of natural law,
and that is the dialectic, two opposite lies.
So there is a distinction in people, they are not created equal and are not paid equal.
The days of wrote manual tasks are over. Some with a certain look and personality or way of talking
have a marketable trait and do things they get paid for. Look how difficult it is to come to a basic understanding of any universal
truth, its all opinion and superstition. They need wrote manual tasks and that just doesnt pay anymore, lots of chinese can
do that. Who thought that some liberal arts tuition debt was a practical investment,
moonbeams, how will they distinquish themselves to create an economic value.
As long has they had manual tasks, it didnt matter much what they wanted to beleive they could do
something stupid and be paid.
I wonder if the sabotage is really a darwinian culling, it almost looked like it is not just naturally occuring and
is being helped. But now I am starting to see, it just wasnt what the planners beleived either, they dont know chit
either. Currency hegemony, war, centralization, they know the least of reality. Probably because they never worked
a day in their life, attorneys, pirates.
Why dont you see american kids out picking the fields for $1 a hour like I did pumping gas, parly that into a machine
and start cutting lawns? They arent hungry enough to peak the intellectual curiousity, what it is to exist in the natural world?
I guess my gift was that my leftist family was so disfunctional, I figured out early that I had to make my way and
that was figuring out how the natural world worked.
Only 2% of population feed the 98%. 98% of us are redundant?
.1% suck the value of 50% resources. Some democracy. Not even a meritocracy. The game is done. Time to put all the monopoly money back in the box.
Would you like toplay a new game?
Howabout thermonuclear war?
The fourth turning continues. The pendulum swings and things will not be going back to a primeval state. Something else awaits, hmmm?
+1 chindit13
excellent post.
Good post chindit.
Though you come across as an arrogant asshole sometimes :)
I agree with a lot of what you said but there were periods during your 1950 to 2005 senerio that weren't so rosy. I think you have "smoothed out" the rough patches. After 1975, there was a period even a minimum wage job couldn't be found in the Chicago area - and a single white male had no real "social safety net". I clearly remember being an unemployed veteran for almost a year, finally got a job in a factory I had to hitchhike to during the winter in sub zero weather, bought a junk car, then apartment lease ran out and couldn't get up the first month last month security deposit for another one, lived in the back seat of the car in Feburary in the parking lot of the factory until I saved enough to get into a dump, showering in the factory bathroom etc.
Times went up and down. The early 1980's were real bad if you weren't in an established career.
It wasn't so rosy sometimes Chindit.
yes i remember those days too.
Don't forget. Keep history real.
Great Post! and I agree with your point about redundant labour, especially at the un-skilled and youth end of employment. There are 2 powerful forces working against employment across the western world. Ageing population is the big one, we are living longer and working longer, therefore increasing the gap between someone retiring and youth filling the gap. The other is technology and it's taking away jobs at a massive rate:
Garbage trucks (used to have 3 blocks manually loading in bins) now just 1 driver - soon to be driverless.
Parking attendants - gone
Bank Tellers (reduced by around 50%)
Checkout chicks - going going gone (automated checkouts and online shopping)
Retail staff - reducing dramatically due to online shopping
Bookkeepers - due to automated accounting software
Website designers ( a new trade!) already on scrap heap to DIY websites.
Fast food workers (about to go)
Factory workers (some to china, but many more to automation)
security staff - cctv cameras
airforce pilots - drones
shipping/customs staff - automated trucks etc
mining - automated trucks/mining equipment.
Lawyers - Oh fuck they're still here :-(
teachers - online degrees
tutors - google
The big one is still coming - self drive cars. Say goodbye to so many jobs/industries!
Taxis, public transport, crash repairers, mechanics, chunk of insurance industry, couriers, truck drivers,
Sadly the answer to this global problem is actually very simple and would improve everyones lives and happiness. We need to create jobs around fitness, lifestyle, leisure. Humans need to be physical and working! We need what used to be volunteer/fun activities to become paid work. Scout leaders, personal trainers (slowly getting there), sport coaches and clubs, prosititution, drugs, dance, child raising, enviromental cleaning, landscaping.
Imagine if everyone got paid to do 1-2 hours physical exercise a day! It's time as humans we let the machines have the jobs and start working to evolving past our need to be pre-occupied with being miserable and creating problems purely to satisfy a pre-programmed biological need for drama.
Or we just start a big fucking war and kill each other.
I vote war! Exercise in abundance, free automatic weapons, ammo and food.
You must be Combat Arms however, anthing else is just another FedGov job.
Amen to redundancy, aging population and technology.
There are few "thinkers" and no politicians who address these issues.
"Sadly the answer to this global problem is actually very simple and would improve everyones lives and happiness. We need to create jobs around fitness, lifestyle, leisure."
Good grief, is there a future for liberal arts majors, after all? Or maybe we should build that colony on the moon and pour our war money into space exploration. Not sarcastic - I do agree with you BTW.
There are a whole lot of technological reasons that have made low-skilled North Americans virtually useless, but none more deadly than soap and water. Modern childbirth is dramatically safer than childbirth in the (even the late) 1800's. Basic cleanliness (especially with drinking water) led to massive declines in cholera, typhus, and other diseases. The net result: huge population growth in the 3rd world, where the norm for 1,000's of years was to have 7 kids, knowing 4 will die before age 10, but that 1 of the other 3 would do well enough to take care of you in your old age. Today, 6.5 out of those 7 kids live, and populations have mushroomed.
Since, of the 7 billion, 3.5 billion are below average in IQ, there's a lot of extra people who can't do any creative work (which is where the big bux are). In the past, good old wars, famine, pestilence, and disease took care of surplus populations. Today, it looks like TPTB are trying to hurry the process along with Obola; I note that the 'humanist' global warming fanatics dream about an Earth with fewer than 1 billion people, making them the biggest speculative mass murderers in history.
I commend to all the works of William Gibson, particularly "Virtual Light", where he accurately foresaw the decline of the middle class, and the rise of a bifurcated society of uber-rich creative/connected/inherited wealth, and very poor schlubs trying to find anything to make a buck.
delecroix: volkswagens have terrible interiors. toyota is the only company that builds engines with internal timing chains (small car) a timing belt failure can ruin the whole engine.
Ummmm, no.
Even in "interference" engines it is not catastrophic.
Doesn't the piston and valve interference cause damage?
Physics says that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
Something has got to give.
Don't you just love timing belts made out of plastic.
It's okay, paying insane prices for the most basic essentials is an Outer Party problem and a necessary sacrifice for the war effort, Once I pass the exams and become a member of the Inner Party I'll have the good life!. You plebs with your blue jumpsuits were disposable anyways.
"Today's bourgeoisie is composed of laborers and skilled workers, white collar and blue collar workers"
Author desperately needs to look up what the word "bourgeoisie" means. I can scarcely believe the editors at ZH would present an article containing such an absurd statement in the lead paragraph.
People in the working class are not bourgeois, and cannot be bourgeois. The bourgeoisie makes its living off its control of capital. The working class must sell their labour in order to live, for the precise reason that they do not control much capital.
Labourers, whatever collar they wear, are not bourgeois--period.
I've said it before, and I'll keep saying, that too many people in late 20th cent. America got into the very bad and lazy habit of thinking of themselves as being "middle class." It was easy for them to form such a bad habit, because at the time they enjoyed a consumption standard that was hitherto the preserve of the petty bourgeoisie (middle class).
But there is a difference between workers enjoying a period of unusually high real wages, and people who actually control the means of production.
The formerly prosperous proletarians of the USA and other developed Western countries are now discovering just how big a difference that is. The proles of America are discovering that they are not middle class, and really never were middle class.
For the American proletariat of today, Job Number One is to remember that they are workers who don't control capital. With that enormous fact borne in mind, their world, and the things which happen to them in that world, will be much easier to understand.
Get your definitions straight...the 'bourgeoise' do not control the capital. They are the middlemen that keep the owners of capital in power.
The bourgeoisie are capitalists who own the means of production and the proletarians are the working classes who are employed by the bourgeoisies.
The workers own the means of production [stock] but do not control it. The masters control the means of production. How many workers who "own the company" [stock] sit on the board? None. Only union thugs who are also masters.
Please stop. According to Oxford - the only dictionary that counts - the first definition of the bourgeoisie as "middle class" is the one most commonly understood. The second definition, which defines them as 'not the proletariat' is the Marxist definition. So, you're both correct, but the second sense is narrower, and only used within a Marxist context.
Irregardless, the American version is best described by Mencken's wonderful "booboisie".
What time is Dancing with the Stars on tonight?
LOL........"middle class" describes a group with certain cultural values.
Aside from the fact that a worker/laborer can afford some of the same 'toys'..........they are not 'middle class' by any means.........
Best summary of my life EVER.
- china is bringing 20 millions people out of poverty every year
- america is sending 20 millions people into poverty every year.
- china current war status - nil
- russia current war status - nil
- america current war status - 7 (?)
- china and russia conducts no war with anyone but america is having a new war every 2 years
- america incarcerate more people than the next 40 countries combined
- american military spending is 40% (+-) of the entire world military spending
- blah blah blah .....
so which government is more legitimate, has a better human and civil rights and better governance ???
Neither.
really ? come on harry, be fair, dont be stubborn .....
Uruguay?
So, in Russia's case, if thousands of soldiers are dying in shooting battles in another country, this is not considered "war"? Or perhaps in the perpetual security operation in the Caucasus, internally in Chechnya or in the Nagorno-Karabakh picnic site?
China certainly does have border conflicts, India, VietNam, and the Philippines are clear examples where shots have been fired, and huge miitary buildups are placed as serious threats
I guess "war" depends on a modern or ancient definition, as well as the rate and intensity of the violence.
Sure, we could take into consideration China and Russia's pasts (or present continuation) as totalitarian and repressive states, but then as we see the US drift that way, I guess in 50 years all the US "wars" will merely become border issues in our vassal states, or military protection of our "citizens" and their interests as in the cases of Russia and China....
...You know, our valued "citizens known as "corporations".
China - trying desperatly to start a war. Crushing any internal uprisings ruthlessly.
Russia - how many wars have they fought internally and are still fighting? Georgia, Chechnia, Ukraine.
American incareration - remove the numbers of black people and it is the same as any other western country.
America's wars? Nothing to do with the USA, just a tool for the international banksters. Once they have depleted the USA, some other army will be used.
America is definitely being pillaged and is in deep decline, but which of those three has a problem with too many immigrants?
To Stay Silent
I think you have to be careful with this type of article. Both Left and Right might say "Yeah, that's right!" and come up with completely different causes and solutions.
As a libertarian and Austrian School of Economics guy, all the things we are seeing from decreasing value of money to moribund economic opportunity is predictable. For the Left, the solution is always more control and more controllers. For the right (libertarian right) it is precisely the opposite.
Things like the failure of GM are pretty normal. My view of economic history is that all corporations will fail over time. All of them. Let's add Sears, Penny's, and a bunch of others you could name to the ash heap. Walmart will probably be there, too. It is a function first of how a corporation works and second changing markets over time. This is not necessarily a "blame the government" thing (which I like to do) but the government certainly hastens it with endless stupid rules or delays it with bail outs and subsidies.
how about middle class cant afford having children ?
omg .....
That one is real bullshit. They don't want to put away childish desires and freedom to take on the responsibilities of being a parent. We rasied three children on near poverty level wages without food stamps etc. Of course, I drove a car someone literally gave me, no credit cards, no loans, etc. Wife didn't work until the youngest started full time school. That bullshit about can't afford it translates to I chose to have iCrap and leased BMW and wonderful new townhouse or McMansion etc.
Now later in life I wish we had more kids, they are the spice of life and make it worth living.
We do have 6 grandkids and our youngest hasn't even started to reproduce yet.
so, american cannot buy :
Vacations
New vehicles
pay off debt
Emergency savings
Retirement savings
Medical care
Dental work
when i say prepper are 1st to die i am over downvoted...
but you have enough money for watching doomsday preppers on tv, you buy all sort of weaponry, you have ebt but got stocks of food for over a year...
your nation is such lame and pitiful.
Its just lulz.
After TEOTWAWKI, one can survive for a long while if one can spot the solar panels in odd places. ;)
At least ammo and gun prices are coming back down to earth.
For now. Not resting on the prices.
Not for .22 Short.
ussa = 47% parasites
Bread and circuses...
The middle class cannot afford their parents/grandparents.
No one wants to Euthanize the dead weight. We must shed them, as painful as it is, like a virgin’s first uterine wall.
It’s hard enough drowning kittens in this society let alone brain thumping granny.
100 years ago you could eat the pigeons downtown, now they’re all protected wildlife.
I shouldn’t have to pay to keep your people alive!
You are a vile, heartless sob-someone gave birth to you, fed you, changed your shitty diapers and put up with your bullshit in an effort to raise you to mature adulthood. Looks like YOU failed miserably.
Want to reduce population? Commit suicide-the world will be a better place.
Wait, so ebolapolooza is off?
This is all very interesting but really, what's going on with Dancing with the Kardashians?
The sad thing is that next Tuesday, 90% of the incumbents will be re-elected. Americans are not too smart when it comes to voting. Why do we complain and then keep sending the same inept group to govern us?
You're funny.
You think people vote.
Murrika - you never learn - all your votes are replaced by robot votes programmed into Diebold machines.
We still haven't experienced the full brunt of Obamacare yet. Remember Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act?
The left is turning you into batteries powering their fortunes and corruption of power.
The left doesn't even exist.
Nor the right.
It's banksters all the way to the top.
I'm middle class and can afford all those things. You make choices in life and priorities need to be made. If you don't need something, don't buy it. Buy used instead of new. Seriously, how many people claim they can't fund retirement but have an Apple Ipad sitting on their counter, a brand new Apple phone or 50" LED TV w/ cable? A new $40,000 SUV? A 2,500+ square foot house? How many commute 50+ miles every day because they prefer living way out? 1-2 divorces that each destroyed their finances? a $40k wedding for their little princess. Choices come with expenses and people need to realize you can't keep up with the Jones and actually win.
I'm going to tell you why you're a moron.
Half of Americans make less than $25k a year.
These people are going without, as the article points out moron.
However, this situation forces prices up on morons like you.
You better watch out, you may not be able to afford these luxuries soon.
actually $25k a year is reasonably good wages for the rest of the world
Those Americans who stormed the beaches at Normandy were suckers.
They thought they won the war and were entitled to a middle class living.
For themselves and their children, and grandchildren.
Winning a war like that entitles three generations to the good life?
The good life is amortizable by the Bank.
I guess we need a new war, and we better win it!
LEAVE IT TO THE BANK TO AMORTIZE THE MIDDLE CLASS.
Cost of living is locked in. 25k/year in America is poor. Cost of living is high. 25 usd/k/year is powerful if you make it in America, eat nothing, move to another country, never return, and spend it. But then you will not make the 25k/year next year.
It's a one-time benefit to earn USD income then spend it somewhere else and not return.
If you have to keep returning to the USA you get no benefits as your cost of living will be US prices.
So your point is fraudulent.
Pretty much you cut out the divorces and a ton more else is affordable. But most guys are so supplicating & lonely they will marry no matter what & be faced with divorce hurricanes.
You just can't talk them out of it.
What's a vacation?
Bathroom breaks.
I'm at $54K/yr and am happy to be doing so well. I know a lot of people that aren't. And even so I've been laid off three times since 2007.
The article is right; we can't afford a vacation, we have no savings to speak of, we're making barely over the minimum payments on CC's (that were racked up due to medical/dental costs), we rent, we finance a 2010 Honda (because I need to have reliable transpo), and my retirment is through CalPERS exclusively. I haven't been able to afford to contribute to my Roth-IRA in almost 10 years.