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The Middle Class Spending Crash Explained
With Black Friday sales plunging and Cyber Monday growth slowing, it appears the chicken of stagnant wages and debt-saturation are coming home to roost for a massacred middle-class America. However, as WSJ reports "we are buying less stuff," because the basic costs of necessities such as healthcare, food eaten at home, rent, education, and cellphones have surged.
As The Wall Street Journal reports,
Consumer spending continues to make up just over two-thirds of the U.S. economy. But where households spend that money has shifted significantly.
To see how it has moved, the Journal analyzed Labor Department data on 2013 out-of-pocket spending for the middle 60% of the population by income—households earning between about $18,000 and $95,000 a year, before taxes.
The data show they are losing ground. Overall spending for the group rose by about 2.3% over the six-year period from 2007, even as inflation totaled about 12%. At the same time, income for the group stagnated, rising less than half a percent.
With health care and other costs rising, these consumers spent less on furniture, entertainment, clothing and even child care, the Journal analysis found.
“Part of the story is that your income growth is slowing,” said Steven Fazzari, an economist and chairman of the sociology department at Washington University in St. Louis. “They’re spending more on necessities, cutting back on other types.”
Inflation much...
The overall cost of health care rose by 21% between 2007 and 2013, according to separate data from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. And employees paid more for workplace insurance, averaging $380 a month for family coverage in 2013, up 39% from 2007, data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows.
This year, overall health-care spending is expected to continue growing at a modest pace, but government projections suggest U.S. households may spend slightly less, as more people obtain insurance, premium subsidies or Medicaid coverage.
Spending on mobile-phone service, meanwhile, has soared, rising nearly 50% since 2007, the year the iPhone came out and data plans became more commonplace.
Similarly, spending on home Internet service has soared by more than 80%. Last year, it made up about 0.8% of spending for middle income households, up from 0.4% six years earlier.
And this means discretionary spending has collapsed...
To make up the difference, middle income Americans have cut costs where they can. Spending on event admission and fees has fallen 16.5%, while spending for a broad category that includes boats, motor-homes, cameras and party rentals has fallen 31%.
Spending on household textiles, including bath and bed linens, has fallen 26.5%. Spending on care for children and the elderly has fallen 25%.
Simply put, the American Middle-class...
“I buy less stuff for myself,” she said. “We’ve cut a lot out—a lot of extras you used to get, so you can afford food and the electric. And you’re trying to save for retirement.”
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Unrestricted usury can't end any other way. Bankster profit increases as debt saturation increases (aka the proportion of disposable income spent on repaying past consumption) so they constantly push more and more debt... until *poof* it doesn't work any more - because when disposable income dips too low the economy grinds to a halt. This is why the banking mafia always destroy countries/empires/civilizations when they take over. I doubt it's deliberate personally - maybe it is - but it happens every time either way.
Absolutely.
When the entire system is based on usury, it requires infinite expansion. A sensible person will only take on debt at interest if he has reason to think he'll have more money later to pay the interest on top of the principal. If the loan doesn't directly lead to more income (buying tools or education), then the increasing income has to come some other way to justify taking on the debt. When a sensible person no longer believes he will have more income next year than he does this year, he's not going to take on debt. That leaves idiots and desperate people who don't plan to pay the debt in the first place. That, of course, accelerates the cycle of destruction because if this system can't expand, it tears itself apart. As we see all around us all the time.
You didn’t spend that (consumer spending is 40 percent of GDP, not "two-thirds").
Worse, the government of, by and for the American people has been captured by the centralized state, using healthcare as a control of the people and support for the non producers (regime supporters). According to the WSJ, “In 2011, the most recent year in which most of the countries reported data, the U.S. spent 17.7% of its GDP on health care, whereas none of the other countries tracked by the OECD reported more than 11.9%.”
Socialized medicine is the wedge for the socialized state.
Get It Straight: Consumer Spending is *not* 70% of GDP |Bloomberg Businessweek
Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 29, 2009
…economics writers have fallen into a subtle but very important trap. They look at the category of GDP which the BEA calls ‘personal consumption expenditures’ and assume that it means what it sounds like: The money that persons, like you and me, spend on consumption.
But in fact, ‘personal consumption expenditures’ in the U.S. is a grab-bag category which includes all sorts of money—like Medicare spending by the government—which never passes through the hands of households. PCE also includes all the consumer goods imported into the U.S.—cars, computers, clothing, and the like—which create very little economic activity in this country.
In fact, by my very rough calculations, the money that people actually pull out of their paychecks and bank accounts to pay for domestically-produced goods and services drives about 40% of economic activity in this country. That’s still large—but the U.S. is nowhere near as dependent on consumer spending as people think. …
Okay. Let’s look under the hood…at the detailed breakdown of PCE…
The first category includes household spending on goods and services which are primarily domestically-produced. That would be things like food, recreation, haircuts, utilities, legal fees, airplanes, auto repair, and so forth.
This category—roughly $4.3 trillion, or 30% of GDP—is all ‘pocketbook’ expense. Households lay out money, which primarily goes to support domestic production and employment.
But then we come to the second category: Import-intensive goods. These are items such as clothing, personal computers, cell phones, televisions, toys, sporting goods, cars, gasoline, and so forth. These are items where a substantial amount of production is done abroad, either directly or indirectly.
For such import-intensive goods, a $1 of consumer spending does not correspond to a $1 of domestic activity. If you buy a shirt or a laptop which is made overseas, much of your money supports economic activity in China or Taiwan, not the U.S. This category is worth $1.7 trillion, or 12% of GDP.
[Important note: This is a very very rough breakdown]
Now we come to the third category of PCE—“imputed services.” What this means is that the BEA assigns a number to certain economic activities, even though no money actually changes hands. The two most important imputed services are “imputed rental of owner-occupied nonfarm housing” and “financial services furnished without payment”. Respectively, these are the money you supposedly pay yourself to live in your own home, and the money you supposedly pay the bank for such services as free checking (by accepting lower or no interest on your demand deposits).
This category—worth $1.5 trillion or 11% of GDP—does represent real economic transactions. However, households don’t have any direct short-term control over this spending. You can’t say to yourself, oh, I’m going to pay a little less rent to myself this week, and use less of the house. Or you can’t say to the bank, oh, I’m not going to write any checks this week, so why don’t pay me a bit more interest.
To put it another way, payments for imputed services don’t directly drive economic activity. They are basically entries which make the government’s economic books balance.
Now we come to a wonderful category—healthcare goods and services, including hospitals, drugs, doctors, nursing homes, and health insurance. Because of the vagaries of national income accounting, most of the money that the government pays for Medicare and Medicaid, and that businesses pay for employer health insurance, shows up in the PCE category.
To put it another way—if Medicare pays the hospital $25 K for your father’s knee replacement, that money shows up as personal consumption expenditures. If your company health plan pays $30K for the birth of your son—that counts as PCE, even though you never see the money.
The healthcare category totals roughly $2 trillion, or 15% of GDP. But in fact, only about (roughly!) 15% of healthcare spending is “out of pocket”. The rest comes from government or through employee health plans.
And now we come to the final catch-all category, which I have labeled “social services, religious activities, R&D, and other similar activities.” This category includes spending by religious groups, such as the Catholic Church. It includes community food and housing relief. It includes R&D spending by private educational institutions, like Harvard. It includes social advocacy groups, like Greenpeace. It includes (I’m relatively sure) spending by political parties—Democrats and Republicans alike.
In other words, this wonderful category—totaling about $400 billion, or 3% of GDP—includes all sorts of spending which could be described as “social” rather than “individual”. And it’s funded by individuals, government, charitable contributions, and investment income.
So how does this all add up?...
… So when I added this all up, I got that households actually lay out about $5.5 trillion a year (2009) which drives domestic economic activities—about 40% of GDP.
Household outlays are an important driver of economic activity, but healthcare and ‘social’ outlays—driven by a different dynamic—are important as well.
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/08/get_it_straight.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/07/23/u-s-health-spending-one-of-these-things-not-like-others/
A cell phone is not a necessity and that's part of the problem.
If you cannot pay the bills, you dump the tv, cable, internet and mobile phone contracts, get a $10 old phone or even a landline - those POTS are still there, get a used beater, buy collision only auto insurance, get a roommate, don't wasted money on education.
My cell phone is actually cheaper than my landline. Many jobs require that you have both a cell phone and an e-mail account you can check everyday.
In general I agree with your comments; a lot of "needs" are actually "wants." But a whole lot of things we'd normally consider "wants" have become required recently.
Funny thing, here in the real world, my boss doesn't want to wait for me to get home before I answer his calls. Decadent, I know...
Actually, in todays world, things like a phone and internet access ARE necessities...
Agreed, the big data plans are NOT needed. But the basic functional services ARE.
Sorry, but must chime in. I don't have a cell phone, I-pad, Blackberry. Have never downloaded a ringtone, wouldn't know what Spacebook or Myface is and don't care. I also don't wear a watch, have only one calendar anywhere around (on this desktop computer) and I get along just fine. I notice that SmartPhones are called smart because of the phone, not because of the user. If necesary, I could easily get along without the internet. But then, I was 8 years old before my family ever owned a television set.
It's very difficult to get a job without a phone and internet access. Most job applications are online, and you still need a phone for callbacks and interviews.
@ Bemused: I tend to agree, that for most of us a cell phone and internet access are necessities.
I cut the land-line years ago and my cell phone (my current "dumb" flip-phone) became my home phone. For a while, I was on contract with ATT-- til I got wiser. I eventually ended up with Virgin which was no-contract and far more economical ($20.00 m.o.), but am finding that I might be able to do better still.
On internet, I went from shared cable access (another contract) to Clear (was $25 per month, until (sadly) Clear was bought-out by Sprint who in-turn jacked-up the prices).
I'm looking at a more-or-less smart phone (might go with Freedompop, might not) so I can do quick research for when I need answers while at a job-site, and to have one-the-go access to email and telephone communication. As still part of the formal economy, I've found these things have become necessities and part of the cost if one is to do routine business these days.
Why?
You don't need the internet or a cell phone to get a job or apply for a job or set up an interview.
If you need access, library.
Tracfones start at $20 for the phone with rates at $20 for 3 months, or less than $7/mth, which is considerably cheaper than any landline. Of course, if one wants the unlimited voice/text/data plans that start at $50/mth, or the newest toyphones on $80/mth plans, that's no longer a necessity.
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Well folks, it's called 'deflation'. Get used to it.
While the pointy-heads like Yellen and Draghi want and think low interest rates and printing money to create inflation will force the sclubs to spend, before their money is completely worthless, they don't get the idea that the little guy will just NOT spend their money, and save it.
Because these pointy-headed fools just don't understand the real world: Once the money is gone, it's gone.
So you save as much as you can, while you can.
Until the economic elites understand this concept, they will continue to fail.
•?•
V-V
And they wonder why internet piracy is so prevalent. The middle class can not afford entertainment any other way.
Serious story: Never intended to be a prepper, but I began stocking up on non-perishables years ago. Light bulbs, bath tissue, plastic bags, plastic wrap, motor oil, canned cooking fuel, cheap wine (now aged nicely), rice (25 year shelf life), honey (5,000 year shelf life), and maybe 50 other such items that I knew I'd use one day (medical and hygiene items - bandages, alcohol, peroxide, etc) . Also a big fan of freeze dried foods with 25 year shelf life, but not canned food--doesn't last long. I paid 2005 prices ( in 2005) for products today that are 100%, 200%, 300% higher. And the day I use those product, take my profits, I'll have made that 100-200% or better. I happened to have bought firearms in 1999 (not for profit, but as a collector). Today they've kept their values right alongside the price of gold, about 6-7 times 1999 prices. Probably the best value out there today is freeze dried food. Try the website www.stilltasty.com You'll learn that 'best-by' dates are usually for legal purposes, not for estimations of shelf-life.
@bardot63-- your link is dead, but the website you've referenced is still active-- for anyone to follow through they'll need to type it into a browser window, access it through a search engine, or try this link-- http://www.stilltasty.com/
Thanks for the info/website-- I'll be studying it a bit before my next trip to the market.
Aside from prepper/SHTF-stuff, bulk non-perishables I've found to be pretty good hedges against this crazy-arsed food-inflation we've experienced over the past few years: while you're going to eat anyway, having food at-hand allows you to be a much more picky consumer. It's probably too-obvious for most, but rotating non-perishable stock-supplies into a few meals a week seems to save at least a few bucks. And from personal experience, knowing that there's going to be no problem putting food on the table for the week can bring some needed piece of mind when and if other problems arise.
Thanks for the correction on the link. I'll make note, because I reference it quite a bit. I've found it's sometimes difficult to keep stocks of food rotated, but most non-perishables (except 25 year food stores) can be kept in a garage or backyard barn. I live on the Gulf Coast where even mild hurricanes can knock power and transportation out for a couple of weeks. Which includes cell towers. Home insurance down this way stopped paying for spoiled food stocks years ago, so I stocked up on charcoal to cook those foodstocks like steaks and chops within a day or two of spoiling. Down here, when power is out, eveyone cooks on bar-b-q pits and invites the neighbors over. We have back-to-back cookouts until the food is gone. Bar-b-q pits are also good for cooking with heavy pots when electricity is gone and nat gas is not available. I don't use a generator....I find them obnoxious and sometimes useless. When Gustav hit the coast in 2008, everyone was prepared with a gasoline generator, but with power out, there were no gas stations pumping gas. So a $1200 generator was good for about 1/2 day before it was out of fuel and useless, assuming you had 12 gallons of gasoline stored to begin with. I feel sorry for the folks who are not prepared for emergencies (Sandy, New Jersey). Usually they are the types who believe the government or the Red Cross will come to save them. Tell that to the 1,000 dead who waited on Chocolate Ray Nagin (now in prison) to save them from Katrina. New Orleans, (home of Mary Landrieu (O-care's deciding vote) was and is the petri dish for socialist politics, and it paid the price. [Chocolate was Nagin's own term, so you down voters can just keep your snarlish, ignorant race-baiting comments to yourself and spend your time instead doing some much-needed reading.] PS. I also have a back-up clothesline for drying clothes....the only practical use for solar energy I've ever found, and already in use for centuries when I put mine up 30 years ago.
God Bless Kyle Bass: "Guns and Gold, baby, Guns and Gold!"
And stay short the Land of the Rising Zimbabwe!
"we are buying less stuff," because the basic costs of necessities such as healthcare, food eaten at home, rent, education, and cellphones have surged. "
It's the Federal Reserve's grand plan is to inflate the debt away.
Max out your debt because in a short time you'll pay it back with worthless dollars.
Bernanke and his son are maxing out their debts. Follow Bernanke because he and the other Federal Reserve heads know their taking down the value of the fiat.
YeeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaaa.
Cable subscribers and thus mainstream media viewers are dropping like flies.
Up my FAFSA Yellen MuthaFukka.
Looks like occupations of the future are nursing and dog walking.
yeah, even people who have money to spend aren't spending it!!
they see bumpy roads ahead as well!
Well a perspective from a decent income. I pay 43% in taxes. I have to value everything at gross income cost, the $45,000 car is over $80,000 gross income when all is said and done with sales taxes and interest, insane. The waste I have is $40 for cable tv which we never watch. I spend a lot to kick in taxes for my wife, she is taxed at my top marginal rate on her $9.25 an hour job. So the maximum each year has to be put into an IRA for her for the tax deferal. I have to put the max to my 401k for tax deferal too. We spend a lot more eating out since she works, not tax deductible. We have dumb phones, Puretalk, about $20-30 a month. We have to have a 2nd car since she works, not tax deductible. I take out 2 small pensions early at age 55 and buy permanent whole life insurance for my wife with it. I spend a lot on permanent life insurance for myself, a high cash value private banking setup. Over 2 years I put a lot into stocks and metals. When I clear off some debts in 4-6 months I am opening another permanent whole life for myself. My first is a high cash value banking policy, the next one is more for a high death benefit. My wife has been saving her money and we live off mine. So next month we will start putting more than half her money into a high cash value dividend paying whole life for her to use for private banking in the future. I will be approaching the Nelson Nash "Becoming your Own Banker" model of running 100% of net income through the whole life policies, from about 25% now to 50% by next year. Bottom line because of taxation, we are forced to invest and save everything, cannot spend at 43% taxed above nominal prices. I am putting a good bit of money into my 2008 car at 40k miles to prepare to keep it ,which requires expensive extended warranty and a major maintenance due. I have to pay $100 an hour shop rates now because I am too old to go under a car on a creeper, and its too dangerous. I rent and not mortgage because I would have to pay $500 more just to begin deducting mort interest on schedule A, than the rent costs. I figure deflation will crash the housing market and that is not a bag I want seen holding, and rent costs will be going down anyway. The math works something like this I dont remember the exact values it can be worked out on the online federal reserve inflation calculator, take the real rates of inflation, use for example a home price 1995 vs 2014. Taxes have to be 1/2 what they are today, to be on par with 1995 living standards adjusted for inflation. Taxes are not scaled down with inflation, that is the death of the society and median class, as one of the last white minority W2 labor slaves, with a decent income, I cannot spend any more than the median class can who has no income. Now I figure my company has 2 other worse factories to close first, I may make it a little while. And I know I am done when the company insurance goes deathcare, its a race to the bottom. The point of the permanent whole life, it comes back out tax free with 4-5% compounding dividends, it is exempt from litigation. Now I realize we may not be able to count on any paper systems existing so I also do the metals and stocks. I really want to do the long term storable consumables too but have not started on that. It's pretty much pigs passing through the snake. I aint so smart, I still have nothing, paper risks. Taxation genocide. Pigs to the slaughter.
Hey man,
you've got a plan, that's more than most Americans can say honestly.
You are counting on the idea that the government will not tax the "loans" you take out of your life insurance policies. This is a fantasy. You will retire with a financial asset and they will take it from you with the stroke of a pen.
I can just about believe anything they do, but it is already taxed money as opposed to 401k and IRA where the
tax rate is not even computed yet. One legally doesn not own their 401k/IRA yet becasue the tax is not paid yet.
Roth should be important about now. For example if Armstrong is right, stocks double, the tax doubled too, Roth
avoids that.
Whole life policies have a cash value and therefore are not exempt from litigation or other creditor risk.
My brother told me last weekend that his girlfriend's girlfriend has a small business, and that she reported that Obamacare finally made it possible for her to afford health insurance, which was important because she needed an operation, without which she might die.
So, we went out to eat, and I asked the waitress what she thought about Obamacare. She said that Obamacare had cut her health insurance cost in half. Clearly, that is important because, of course, as a waitress, she doesn't make a lot of money.
Personally, I think a nation would be best off with either no health insurance or Single Payer. Anything in between merely creates a new industry of financial parasites, which is what the USA has in spades. But I think it is only right to report that, apparently, for at least some lower-income Americans, Obamacare is in fact better than the no-insurance or no-affordable-insurance it replaced.
The short term and immediate gratification for small numbers of people is how they sell this stuff (voters)
but it is sooo evil, hundreds of thousands have been genocided and dont know it yet, it will manifest.
I am sure it could have been done correctly in a few pages of legislation, that is obviously not the agenda.
I am talking esoterically here, a lot of ways and times, I understand and feel something before I can verbalize it
concisely.
If it was right, in accordance with natural law, it would have worked, it is collapsing, that was already known
because I read details of the statute. It is not a healthcare bill, it is something else.
The dying people better get their treatment while they can, one year, two, who knows. I am happy for them.
what makes you think the costs are stable, the copays frozen? the jobs that waitress has is permanent..well all three are going, the one's thinking this good now have just not hit the real costs. this is a job killer.
"Obamacare is in fact better than the no-insurance or no-affordable-insurance it replaced."
Obamacare is a tax designed to off-load Medicaid patients from the Federal Govt and onto the backs of young college grads who otherwise wouldn't have insurance or would contribute the minimum to a company insurance plan.
No surprise that tax-subsidized premiums are better than paying your own way. And that waitress is probably making more than you think, as most of her income is unreported cash.
Well I got to recommend the Nelson Nash book, other online resources can be found on the subject, I'm just 2 years into it.
My company paid a dividend every year since it was created in 1880s. No telling if anything can survive these occultists so not
all eggs in one basket either. Are my company pensions better there or in the private mutual companies, I chose to take it out
early as long as it is working at a 4-5% dividend there is no loss for now. I pay taxes on it now while it is a smaller value
coming out at this time, before dividend growth, and then it is in exempt status too. I was real uncomfortable about coming up
short on cash flow when starting but no problem.
Try this video, it can change a life. It is all opposite everything they have programmed, you'll notice conspicous absense of
federali education, it would take a real curiosity and interest to wrap your head around it. But I cant teach the young people anything
about this, all they know is what the federalis didnt tell them.
I have accumulated quite a net worth in two years since I am rebuilding from divorce, bankruptcy, remarriage.
I believe so much in this I am interested in getting a liscense to sell it but I am paid pretty well and cant allow for any distractions
from my real job until retirement, but maybe I can do it in retirement in about 10 years or if the federalis take us out sooner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trXqdojFH_Y
Looks like a 770 Insurance Account with Interest Growth, and possible withdrawals like an Annuity.
http://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/palm-beach-letter/secret-770-account...
It's funny that anyone thinks this is relevant. The only thing that matters is the FED still exists therefore the spoos will keep going higher sure as the sun rises in the east.
I am following an approach now to focus on the Index that is managed and benefits from capitalizatin weighted calculation.
One of the guys put up some info that at one recent DOW high, only one of the 30 was at a new price high.
As the stocks dwindle away from breadth attrition, they can keep the index up. I am reorganizing my stock accounts
to the index we go and already did some of that in the 401k.
They'll be passing out free gift cards to everyone any day now
Only blind and deaf would’t see what’s going on. What’s even more infuriating that WSJ types presented as inevitable God’s will – laws of economy.
It suffice to examine any of neo-liberal, neo-conish, pseudo-economist biblical rants to see that the results of the study presented in the post are due to deliberate, planned, prepared and executed world corporate-governmental policies of destruction of American (western) standard of living and purchasing power of American (western) people through process called total pauperization e.g. down-equalizing incomes in western countries to that of developing countries. Global shit man. TPP, TTT, CAFTA, NAFTA etc.
The plan includes:
That’s “Ultimate Solution” plan of our Gods of Globalization. Enjoy the ride America.
When there is no surpluse for any extra stuff for the middle class, or at least what is the last remainder of what once was the middle class, then it is over for good with the economy. The crash will come before that point though. We're not far away from that point, if not already well on the way down accelerating into the abyss Wile E. Coyote style.
I haul gasoline now here in Florida and its way slow and more than normal for this time of year. More subprime cars on the road but i guess they're running on on cell phone battery pwr.
Obamacare, just as predicted, is a massive drag on the economy, leaving little discretionary spending.
That was my thought as well.
We have a saying here in the Netherlands: 'You can only spend your buck one time.' meaning that if you spend it on one thing you can't spend it on an other thing. It's all very simple. Quote:
Overall spending for the group rose by about 2.3% over the six-year period from 2007, even as inflation totaled about 12%. At the same time, income for the group stagnated, rising less than half a percent.
With health care and other costs rising, these consumers spent less on furniture, entertainment, clothing and even child care, the Journal analysis found.
where did the additional $9 trillion in national debt go...????? apparently spent with no economic impact.... ???????
It went to the cronies.
No impact?
Have you been to a grocery store lately, or priced health insurance? Been to a hospital for an emergency?
Jesus Christ!
How are people who make (median US) $13/hour supposed to pay medical pros $5k an hour?
Is ANYBODY worth $5k per hour?
Methinks no.
I got billed $2,500 for an emergency room doc to put glue on my cut knee. I can't imagine how, but it's true. So, now I'm a patient of a public clinic supported by tax dollars that has a PA twice a week. I figure a nurse can do the same thing for $80 or less.
Grow weed.
Best ROI outside of buying a Congressman.
Taxes paid in to US gov't continue at RECORD LEVELS-gee, maybe that's where the money's going!
On a more positive note I can find ammo on store shelves again...except for .22LR blocks. For a while .223, .308 and all common handgun ammo wouldn't last 3-seconds on the shelf.
Don't forget Communist taxation
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/communist-e-u-and-america-gorge-on-taxes-and-want-laws-to-make-lower-taxes-illegal/
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/11/01/germanys-minister-of-finance-wolfgang-schauble-promotes-globalist-tax-collection-for-e-u/
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/11/01/fed-pushes-banks-to-govern-data-preperation-for-global-tax-collection/
At least Bruce Wild's relentless blog ads put the figleaf up over the paperhanging. He re-posts old reposts of misspelled post snippets. You just throw a headline up, and get to business.
Nice to see the Tylers spreading their legs like this.