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Why We Feel So Poor (In Two Charts)
Submitted by John Rubino via Dollar Collapse blog,
Among the many things that mystify economists these days, the biggest might be the lingering perception, despite six years of ostensible recovery, that the average person is getting poorer rather than richer. Lots of culprits come in for blame, including the growing gap between the 1% and everyone else, negative interest rates (which starve savers and retirees of income) and the crappy nature of the new jobs being created in this recovery.
But one that doesn’t get much mention is the changing nature of the bills we’re paying. It seems that Americans are spending a lot more on health care, which leaves less for everything else. Here’s an excerpt from a MarketWatch report of a couple of weeks back, with two charts that tell the tale:
Share of consumer spending on health hits another record
The percentage of money U.S. consumers spend on health care rose in 2014 for the third straight year to another record high, according to one government measure.
Some 20.6% of total consumer spending in 2014 was devoted to health care, including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, annual figures from the Commerce Department report on personal expenditures show. That’s up from 20.4% in 2013.
Health-care expenses has been rising for decades regardless of government efforts to control costs. The percentage of consumer spending on health care rose from 15% in 1990, topping 20% for the first time in 2009.
With the health-care pie continuing to expand, consumers are paying the same or less as percentage of their spending on most other goods and services compared to 10 years ago.
Americans spend a smaller share of their money on cars and clothing, among other things. The percentage of money they spend on housing and going out to eat is basically unchanged over the longer run.
Not surprisingly, the only other major category to show a sustained increase in spending over the past 25 years is education. The share of money Americans spend on college has climbed to 1.59% from 0.9% in 1990.
What this means is that we’re spending more on two big categories — health care and education — that don’t make us feel richer. Health care, of course, is just maintenance. It’s like changing a car’s oil or fixing a broken transmission, which only restores the status quo rather than enhancing it. Education, meanwhile, is just school. When we’re in college, we don’t feel richer if tuition goes up. So to the extent that those things are getting more expensive, and fun things like eating in restaurants and buying new shoes become less frequent as a result, we feel poorer — or at least less free to indulge ourselves.
This is the opposite of what technology in particular and progress in general were supposed to bring about. As a society advances, it should get better at producing life’s necessities, freeing up capital for life’s joys and making most people feel both richer and more free. As John Maynard Keynes famously predicted in his 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, another century of capital accumulation and advancing science would make it possible for most people to satisfy their basic needs with minimal effort and then go off and have fun. Wrote the economist/poet:
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.
We’re fifteen years short of the century that Keynes predicted it would take, but the goal seems to be receding rather than approaching. That’s frustrating for all the people who have to work harder than ever just to feed their families. And if it goes on much longer the result will be a very vigorous search for culprits — which will be entertaining, even if it doesn’t pay the doctor’s bills.
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We feel so poor because the moneychangers are gaming us.
"Luckily, our public charity trust has a dollar or two Bill and I can retire on."
Otherwise we follow in the steps of the Uruguay President...you know, the poor one.
Hitlary
"Why We Feel So Poor (In Two Charts)"
Cause we ain't part of the joobuck ponzi club...
Actually ~ I don't feel so poor [cause I ain't into JAP baubles]... But just sayin'
Lies, damned lies, and more lies.
I don't see taxes on that list, and they go up every year, far more than the CPI, or anything else on that list.
Some fool has a statist agenda.
Speak for yourself, article author...
I don't feel poor, but then, I don't go to doctors, and I never paid for an education.
Standards of living have been in decline in most Western nations for over fifty years now. It is a rare family that has one working parent and a full time homekeeping parent. "Stay at home" moms were ubiquitous until the early seventies.
The gains in productivity that should have raised our living standards have been stolen by the financial sector. To make matters worse, artificially low interest rates are forcing retirees into ever more risky investments to preserve their wealth. A single male on welfare receives more income than someone attempting to live off interest with a million dollars in the bank.
That is the most telling sign of what a million dollars is actually worth now.
NIRP to steal the last remaining savings to fund the welfare state. Next stop, 3rd world. Thanks, touchy-feely brainwashed boomers.
Welfare has so many faces, and none of them are very pretty.
You're blaming the victim. Corporate profits and usury extract more of our labor than welfare ever has or will. The welfare payments themselves are designed to create dependence and maintain market demand for consumer goods and not to help anyone out of poverty.
At the heart of this, of course, lies the debt-backed money system in which all money is loaned into existence by private banks or their captive Federal Reserve. We - namely the working "middle" class and poor - must spend our entire lives paying interest on these funds which were not even created by the decision of the people through their democratically elected government. Although the working class bears most of the burden of payment it is the poor who proportionally are hit hardest by out=and-out usurers like payday lenders, auto-title companies. etc., creating the need for an extensive welfare state.
End this corrupt system of economics and the permanent welfare state, as applied to healthy working-age people, can be allowed to almost completely evaporate with few ill effects.
The stereotypical "free shit army" soldier exists to justify the free shit burocracy generals. For every dollar that goes to SNAP probably 1000 goes to the generals.
Also a very true statement. The bureaucrats benefit, as do the banks and corporations (Wal-Mart, payday lenders, JP Morgan, etc.) from the largesse of the welfare state. The system itself is not designed to alleviate poverty and desperation, but to do three things:
Yup, they've been pretty much turned into financialized commodities. What happens to them doesn't really matter, as long as they can be shuiffled around for profit, then get blamed in the old divide and conquer trick.
It's like a snowball that keeps getting bigger because if what's considered a normal responsibility is removed, one eventually become irresponsible like a pavlov dog. Sounds like a real sucky life that's hard to get out of especially these days.
I've got more sympathy for them than say douchebag bankers or free shit generals. It's they who've set up a system to game everybody else, so if some people game "it" then fuck 'em. They desrve it although they never seem to pay for it themselves. Maybe some day.
Very on point. Add declining value of the dollars we're forced to use for transactions too. The attack on the standard of living is a multi-pronged effort.
We feel so poor becuase the money changers are stealing from us
"We feel so poor because the moneychangers are gaming us."
With the full cooperation of the government.
And the total indifference of the public.
"We feel so poor because the moneychangers are gaming us."
Nailed it!!!
The only thing I'd like to add, is that... unlike most people in the chart, I like to eat out as much as ever.
Really? When I took out my first mortgage, the interest rate was 8%. Now its down to 3%. I actually pay as much in property taxes as I do in P&I.
Lets see .. are you beter off buying a $200K house with a 8% loan or the same house for $800K with a 3% loan?
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
I hope you swallow broken glass, you cunt. Fuck you.
SOCIALIST!!!
Ya fucking cunt...
Obviously we "feel" poor due to lack of proper meds.
So where's the so-called deflation??
Are any of the 0.01% interested in harvesting my organs?
Wife and children to financially support.
Talk to Darth Cheney, he's always interested in keeping a spare heart on speed dial.
Ah, yes... If Dear Leader Obama only had a heart. Remember when the high level woman in the White House said that Dear Leader can't stand people? So true!!! His policies certainly reflect that.
I have no doubt they may be interested in harvesting your organs or using your blood, they're probably not interested in paying for them however.
Don't worry, those two items of costs will never get much beyond 80%
Having those two that high is almost the economic definition of serfdom
The government created the needy class and must now support and bribe it, but the people who bought into it are discovering the "safety net" is really a noose around their necks. Time is running out for the 'gimme' class.....
That goes for people like some "in-laws" that I've got.
Early retirement from a MIC contractor. Obscene pension and then got bored with the constant whirlwind vacations. Went back to work doing some important MIC thing for even more money.
Obama voter incidentally, without any apparent regrets.
Imagine that. The two things Obama said would be made free by the politicians in Washington D.C.
this should be on top.
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/03/after-aipac-newsweek?utm_source=Mondoweiss...
? ? ? ? ?As the Iran talks go to the wire, we can only marvel at the political fireworks we are seeing.
To being with, there’s the Wall Street Journal report that Israel was spying on the US talks and leaking details to friendly members of congress. Jeff Stein follows up at Newsweek that the revelation has angered many in the administration, and the rage goes at the Israel lobby:
AIPAC opposing Iran deal
AIPAC is working hard against the Iran talks. It has announced six conditions for a deal with Iran that are all deal-breakers.
MJ Rosenberg echoes my own opinion of Obama right now. He’s risen to the occasion:
The Jerusalem Post reports that leading Democrats who Israel and its friends hoped would swing against the Iran talks are sticking by the president, among them Tim Kaine. Though according to Newsweek, the Virginian Senator is covering his bases on the spying controversy, standing up for the Israelis:
Kaine is a Hillary Clinton supporter who has been mentioned as a likely vice-presidential pick. He is also a J Street Democrat, He has been supported by the liberal Zionist lobby group– which opposes AIPAC inside the establishment– as a possible savior of the peace process.
Another important report in Newsweek says that Netanyahu alienated a crucial constituency he needed to block an Iran deal: black Congresspeople. They disliked his upstaging of Obama, most of them boycotted his speech, and they saw his racebaiting on election day:
Reporting the struggle between Congress and the White House, the Daily Beast quotes congresspeople saying the spying allegations are no big deal. But the administration’s leaks are!
It’s crazy, huh. Like if the government was going after the U.S. communist party for disloyalty but most of Congress were strong devoted Communists who shared the party’s loyalty to Moscow. I see the upside, this is the decadent period of the Israel lobby.
J Street is supporting Obama in freezing Netanyahu:
Just now on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd referenced White House chief of staff Denis McDonough’s speech to J Street last week in which he slammed nearly 50 years of occupation as a politically significant act. Mitchell said that the Israelis are now signalling they will accept some type of Iran deal after all. Todd said that the Israelis are concerned about the Security Council resolution for a Palestinian state that is now inevitable– and seeking to make it as agreeable as possible to themselves, by trying to make Europeans happy. So it all comes down to the Palestinians, doesn’t it?
Speaking of nuclear leaks, people are talking about the recent release by the US government of a Defense Department document showing that the US and Israel were working together on Israel’s development of a hydrogen bomb in the 1980s. The story broke in February on Courthouse News:
The researcher who sprung the doc, Grant Smith of IRMEP (Institute for Research: Middle East Policy), tells me that “the report was never classified. Never ‘top secret.’ But it was tightly controlled and subject to DoD release authority.” Last November Smith wrote a letter to the president and then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging them to release the document. He has no idea if they played any role in the release.
But in a January court response to IRMEP, the Defense Department said it was seeking Israel’s OK before releasing the document.
This Israeli site sees the release as politically significant:
Oh and let’s not forget the war party. Bill Kristol on Twitter:
John Bolton in the New York Times op-ed page calls for a joint US Israel military attack on Iran now:
Isn’t that what Jeffrey Goldberg was ordering up five years ago?
- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/03/after-aipac-newsweek?utm_source=Mondoweiss... ? ? ? ? ?
As the Iran talks go to the wire, we can only marvel at the political fireworks we are seeing.
To being with, there’s the Wall Street Journal report that Israel was spying on the US talks and leaking details to friendly members of congress. Jeff Stein follows up at Newsweek that the revelation has angered many in the administration, and the rage goes at the Israel lobby:
AIPAC opposing Iran deal
AIPAC is working hard against the Iran talks. It has announced six conditions for a deal with Iran that are all deal-breakers.
MJ Rosenberg echoes my own opinion of Obama right now. He’s risen to the occasion:
The Jerusalem Post reports that leading Democrats who Israel and its friends hoped would swing against the Iran talks are sticking by the president, among them Tim Kaine. Though according to Newsweek, the Virginian Senator is covering his bases on the spying controversy, standing up for the Israelis:
Kaine is a Hillary Clinton supporter who has been mentioned as a likely vice-presidential pick. He is also a J Street Democrat, He has been supported by the liberal Zionist lobby group– which opposes AIPAC inside the establishment– as a possible savior of the peace process.
Another important report in Newsweek says that Netanyahu alienated a crucial constituency he needed to block an Iran deal: black Congresspeople. They disliked his upstaging of Obama, most of them boycotted his speech, and they saw his racebaiting on election day:
Reporting the struggle between Congress and the White House, the Daily Beast quotes congresspeople saying the spying allegations are no big deal. But the administration’s leaks are!
It’s crazy, huh. Like if the government was going after the U.S. communist party for disloyalty but most of Congress were strong devoted Communists who shared the party’s loyalty to Moscow. I see the upside, this is the decadent period of the Israel lobby.
J Street is supporting Obama in freezing Netanyahu:
Just now on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd referenced White House chief of staff Denis McDonough’s speech to J Street last week in which he slammed nearly 50 years of occupation as a politically significant act. Mitchell said that the Israelis are now signalling they will accept some type of Iran deal after all. Todd said that the Israelis are concerned about the Security Council resolution for a Palestinian state that is now inevitable– and seeking to make it as agreeable as possible to themselves, by trying to make Europeans happy. So it all comes down to the Palestinians, doesn’t it?
Speaking of nuclear leaks, people are talking about the recent release by the US government of a Defense Department document showing that the US and Israel were working together on Israel’s development of a hydrogen bomb in the 1980s. The story broke in February on Courthouse News:
The researcher who sprung the doc, Grant Smith of IRMEP (Institute for Research: Middle East Policy), tells me that “the report was never classified. Never ‘top secret.’ But it was tightly controlled and subject to DoD release authority.” Last November Smith wrote a letter to the president and then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging them to release the document. He has no idea if they played any role in the release.
But in a January court response to IRMEP, the Defense Department said it was seeking Israel’s OK before releasing the document.
This Israeli site sees the release as politically significant:
Oh and let’s not forget the war party. Bill Kristol on Twitter:
John Bolton in the New York Times op-ed page calls for a joint US Israel military attack on Iran now:
Isn’t that what Jeffrey Goldberg was ordering up five years ago?
- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/03/after-aipac-newsweek?utm_source=Mondoweiss...
is your last name Tolstoy.
ffs
less is more
i forgot i was dealing with the short attention span theater.
Get over yourself.
You also forgot you were dealing with some of the fastest bullshit meters on the market. Most of that is simply spin.
Your comment isn't a comment, but a scholastic essay or Article of its own -- and probably deserves its own space on a website somewhere.
Unless utterly amazing, I'd agree with most that it's best to keep it to 4 paragraphs.
It's not just a matter of Attention, but a matter or TIME that one would have to invest.
A powerhouse presentation. Bravo sir!! Milestones
Replace usury with debt slavery.
Economists (and many other experts) really need to re-examine the philosophical belief system which underpins their entire analysis. It would seem (if the above quote is correct) that Keynes believed that it was ok to engage in activities which he felt were wrong to achieve a particular 'good' end. It is this kind of thinking which allows wars, inequality and many other evils to flourish. The end does not 'justify' anything and the means defines the end. By engaging in 100 years of wrongful acts we end up with a result which is far from that desired by Keynes. In retrospect this seems pretty obvious - but so does everything in retrospect. If we paid more than lip service to the education of philosophy in school this kind of thinking would not be so prevalent.
There is one and only one way to fix the cost of care.
No employer health insurance and no state or federal healt insurance.
Everyone must pay cash or get their own insurance.
No insurance company may offer any form of group coverage every man for him or her self.
This is the only thing that makes sense but were Americans and as such we never learn ever.
Obama care at least the Democrats tried to do something. That is a hell of a lot more than Republicans did.
Now that nothing is fixed we have to do the above but only thing that will happen is Republicans will change it yet again and be blamed for the mess they then own.
And in the mean time we suffer.
The only real solution is to outlaw health insurance.
Then healthcare providers will have to make a choice- treat patients at an affordable price, or let them suffer and die. Then it will become clear which providers are only in it for the money, and which ones are in it because they actually enjoy serving humanity.
Anyway- it isn't health insurance, it's sick insurance. If people really wanted to ensure their health, they'd eat right, exercise, and avoid abusing pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and illegal drugs.
All we really need is accident insurance to cover broken legs, etc.
I'm not spending any money on either and I still inexplicably feel poor.....
everyone just needs to drink weedkiller
I made a sourdough bread with a yeast culture from that ale when I lived in that bankrupt hole, Michigan.
it's their own fault for siging up for obamacare.....
fuck that shit, I will continue to pay the "fine" rather than become a part of the subserviant herd.
My Integrity is worth more than your fiat
If you are paying the fine you are still part of the herd......
if i'd actually paid it, i would agree.
one cannot , however, publicly state that they are not paying their "taxes" without very real repercussions.
and , no, i am the furthest thing form the fucking herd that you have likely ever encountereed.
The time is different for everyone, but the time is coming for all to Reject the criminals and withdraw one's participation and collaboration with their tyranny. Are you ready?
Tyranny is a three-legged stool that depends upon violence, plunder and obedience of their victims. Two-legged tyranny cannot stand.
The most powerful weapon the American people have is Rejection.
The system of fraud and theft that has been built up upon the backs of the American people is dependent upon our backs. Withdraw our backs, and the whole scheme collapses. This is our greatest weapon.
Stop Paying--Put it into food, and precious metals, etc. They stole whatever "debt money" they loaned you in the first place (fractional reserve banking) and soon you won't be able to pay them anyways, so Stop Paying.
Stop Playing--Stop being a tool for them to use, mock, and call "stupid." Stop Playing.
Stop Obeying--If they are in violation of the Constitution then they are not legitimate anyways, so Stop Obeying their unlawful dictates.
The Four Rs
Rejection: Stop Paying. Stop Playing. Stop Obeying.
Revolution: It is inevitable, so prepare, as they are.
Retribution: The guilty must answer for their crimes against the American people and the Constitution. No “truth and reconciliation,” but “trial and Retribution.”
Restoration: Restore the American people, country and Constitutional republic.
The banksters need to repay us.
.
Consider the possibility that wiping out the middle class worldwide was a primary goal of the global financial oligarchy ziogangbangkster cartel.
The reason ? Money is power. When you rule over a global serfdom, your subjects have no money and no power.
Instead the banksters have all the power....over the politico, the media, the people, and the armies.
Mission accomplished.
When considering tyranny, one must always start with "Tyranny's Paradox."
Tyranny's Paradox: "How to control and oppress the people that you simultaneously depend on for sustenance and survival."
One application of this is what was seen in Stalinist Russia. When the cost of harvests rose due to decreased productivity, the tyrants found that it was to their benefit to eliminate "mouths" instead of freeing some of the shackles as Lenin had done. The result, millions of fewer "mouths," and millions of additional slave laborers in the gulags.
Nazi Germany looted the "undesirable" people, and then put them in slave labor camps.
The DC US is plundering people on the roadside, and employing slaves in their labor camps, prisons.
The banksters need to repay us.
The People's Paradox: Tyranny only functions with the people's participation.
I like your 4Rs and two Paradoxes (Tyranny's Paradox, People's Paradox).
Enlightenment, Clarity, and Simplicity has increased greatly in you in the last 2 years, IMO. As has your Courage (as to what needs to be done to cure the disease).
"Save Humanity. Guillotine a Bankster."
The banksters need to repay us.
And have the hens leave our pond.
You DO know that hens are chickens, and chickens can't swim?
;-)
Why we feel so poor? Duh, we're being robbed 24x7!....
What this means is that we’re spending more on two big categories — health care and education
Duh!!
These are the two areas most controlled by and subsidized by government.
Only market-based choice and competition can make them more efficient and therefore affordable.
World population has at least doubled in the last century so the world is now fiercly competitive despite productivity gains through technology.
The West is going to learn that the future belongs to the low cost producer of products after the return of genuine G & S money.
The Western sheeple aren't going to know what hit them in the next financial crisis. They are going to be so confused by the shortages and collapse in their purchasing power.
They won't even be able to afford their toxic vaccines, GMOs and fluoride that led to their undoing by our parasitic hidden rulers.