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The American Dream "Exposed" In 22 Depressing Datapoints

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Once upon a time, middle class households took home 62 percent of all income in America. Today, that number has dropped to just 43 percent. This is just one of the absolutely astounding statistics that you will read about in this article. Over the years, the middle class in America has been in steady decline. Our incomes have been going down, our net worth has been going down, the quality of our jobs has been going down, and yet the cost of living just keeps going up. As a result of all of these factors, more Americans are living in poverty today than ever before, and dependence on the government has exploded to unprecedented levels.

But of course it doesn’t take a genius to figure any of this out. In fact, politicians of all stripes are saying the exact same thing during this election season…

Bernie Sanders says it is in the midst of “a 40-year decline.” Jeb Bush says it is “shrinking.” Ted Cruz says it is “headed in the wrong direction.” And Hillary Clinton says the “basic bargain” that hard work could move families into the middle class “has eroded.”

Sadly, when we send these politicians to Washington D.C. they just continue on with business as usual. No matter who resides in the White House and no matter who controls Congress, the game remains the same and the middle class just continues to suffer. The following are 22 cold, hard pieces of evidence that show that the middle class in America is dying…

#1 This week we learned that for the first time ever recorded, middle class Americans make up a minority of the population. But back in 1971, 61 percent of all Americans lived in middle class households.

#2 According to the Pew Research Center, the median income of middle class households declined by 4 percent from 2000 to 2014.

#3 The Pew Research Center has also found that median wealth for middle class households dropped by an astounding 28 percent between 2001 and 2013.

#4 In 1970, the middle class took home approximately 62 percent of all income. Today, that number has plummeted to just 43 percent.

#5 There are still 900,000 fewer middle class jobs in America than there were when the last recession began, but our population has gotten significantly larger since that time.

#6 According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

#7 For the poorest 20 percent of all Americans, median household wealth declined from negative 905 dollars in 2000 to negative 6,029 dollars in 2011.

#8 A recent nationwide survey discovered that 48 percent of all U.S. adults under the age of 30 believe that “the American Dream is dead”.

#9 At this point, the U.S. only ranks 19th in the world when it comes to median wealth per adult.

#10 Traditionally, entrepreneurship has been one of the engines that has fueled the growth of the middle class in the United States, but today the level of entrepreneurship in this country is sitting at an all-time low.

#11 If you can believe it, the 20 wealthiest people in this country now have more money than the poorest 152 million Americans combined.

#12 The top 0.1 percent of all American families have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.

#13 If you have no debt and you also have ten dollars in your pocket, that gives you a greater net worth than about 25 percent of all Americans.

#14 The number of Americans that are living in concentrated areas of high poverty has doubled since the year 2000.

#15 An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.

#16 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month, and nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.

#17 In 2007, about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.

#18 According to Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, the authors of a new book entitled “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America“, there are 1.5 million “ultrapoor” households in the United States that live on less than two dollars a day. That number has doubled since 1996.

#19 46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out.

#20 The number of homeless children in the U.S. has increased by 60 percent over the past six years.

#21 According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year.

#22 The median net worth of families in the United States was $137, 955 in 2007. Today, it is just $82,756.

The wealth of U.S. families increased from 1983 to 2007, fell sharply since

That last number really stunned me.

According to Pew Research, the median net worth of U.S. families has fallen by more than $55,000 since 2007.

That sure doesn’t sound like an “economic recovery” to me.

I think that everyone can agree that we have a major problem on our hands.

So what is the solution?

Well, in order to have a healthy middle class, we need to have an economy that produces lots of middle class jobs and lots of thriving small businesses. But in America today, our small businesses are being strangled out of existence by mountains of red tape and excessive taxation, and millions of middle class jobs have been shipped out of the country to other nations where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.

Until we start doing things differently, we are going to continue to get the same results that we have been getting, and the middle class will just keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

The middle class is now a minority in this country. How much worse do things have to get before we say that enough is enough? Are we just going to stand on the sidelines and watch the middle class disappear entirely?

At one time, the United States had the most vibrant middle class the world had ever seen. We were the envy of the rest of the planet, and people all over the world wanted to come here and live out “the American Dream”.

Unfortunately, “the American Dream” is now dying, and most Americans don’t seem to care.

What in the world is it going to take for people to finally wake up and start taking action?

 

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Sat, 12/12/2015 - 19:55 | 6915827 Duc888
Duc888's picture

 

 

 

oh...... it gets better.  King O signed a law into effect this week.  You owe back taxes (50K) they pull your passport.

 

Yup, land of da free.  The whole werld hates us for our freedums.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:09 | 6915866 RiverRoad
RiverRoad's picture

But plot Death to America and they wave you in.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:18 | 6915893 Stainless Steel Rat
Stainless Steel Rat's picture

Kill the fed-note.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:07 | 6916016 zeronetwork
zeronetwork's picture

every passing day is better than the one coming tomorrow.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:34 | 6915931 junction
junction's picture

"Since a pair of 1938 Treasury Department Tax Rulings, and another in 1941, Social Security benefits have been explicitly excluded from federal income taxation. (A revision was issued in 1970, but it made no changes in the existing policy.) This changed for the first time with the passage of the 1983 Amendments to the Social Security Act. Beginning in 1984, a portion of Social Security benefits have been subject to federal income taxes."

The power to tax is the power to destroy, and the corrupt American tax system has targeted the middle class.  The Democratic Party is now run bu liars and thieves like Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz.  Did Wasserman-Shultz's parents ever go to prison for tax evasion and theft?  Henry Paulson became Secretary of the Treasury so he could take advantage of Bush 39 law that allowed him to cash out all his Goldman Sachs stock holdings and pay no income tax. 

Robbing from the middle class to enrich the friends of Congressional lawmakers has turned America into a third world country.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:43 | 6915956 Government need...
Government needs you to pay taxes's picture

Makes sense. . . US .gov only get larger thru time.  US .gov grows FASTEST in a recession (gotta provide moar jobs, donchaknow).  On top of that, the Dims must roll out a new 'free shit' program for the niggers and other 'takers', about once a decade.  The middle class pays for the niggers' free shit, less the graft of the .gov apparatus.  In an increasingly competitive world job market, disposible income just isnt growing as fast for the middle class.  SO, Americans are dropping out of the middle class, in large part due to the ever-increasing cost of the failed nation-state apparatus that is US Fedcoat .gov.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 00:40 | 6916520 847328_3527
847328_3527's picture

Wait until the Obamacare Tax penalties start slapping middle class workers.

 

" Yes we can! "

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:40 | 6915950 tarabel
tarabel's picture

 

 

They hate us because we are the only people on earth who possess the means to derail their plans for universal empire.

Most of the things we Americans currently complain about happened to everyone else so long ago that they are unable to discern what has been stolen from them and instead regard the substituted proto-serfdom as immutable and highly advantageous benefits of true freedom.

In North Korea, for example, I doubt that the secret police will come busting in the door if you utter the word "liberty".

It has just been so thoroughly redefined that it now means "life in today's wonderful North Korea" to those who hear it.

I don't know if they ever completed the series but the John Harvard Library series of Pamphlets of the American Revolution (Vol 1) are priceless starting points for re-education. Not only for their own merit but also for the fabulous commentary from Bernard Bailyn. The two volume Origins of the American Revolution and Triumph of Freedom by John C Miller are also extremely valuable additions to make to any post-catastrophe library shelf. I lost my old Triumph of Freedom in a move and paid the pricely sum of $1 for a beautiful hardcover first edition on Amazon.

Go back to the wellsprings.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 02:51 | 6916698 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Accepting your recommendations for Origins of the American Revolution and Triumph of Freedom by John C Miller; order placed.

 

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 05:26 | 6916741 Bananamerican
Bananamerican's picture

"Go back to the wellsprings"

I would but my next-door neighbor thinks the Reptillians (aliens) are behind America's decline; "energy, forces, light-waves, shape-changing, mind-control, Blue-Planet project"

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:21 | 6916041 junction
junction's picture

Bad as it is here in America, things are worse in India, where Bill Gates' foundation is busy running illegal vaccine trials on children that leave the children crippled or dead.  http://www.naturalnews.com/052265_vaccine_experiments_Bill_Gates_India.html

Coming soon to schools in the USA, where eugenicists like Gates use kids as guinea pigs.  Autism, anyone?

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 12:55 | 6917562 MorningWood
MorningWood's picture

I'm guessing this means one of this nation's greatest spiritual leaders will have his passport revoked, Al Sharpton?

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 19:56 | 6915829 Hulk
Hulk's picture

Is this the good Snyder or the bad Snyder ???

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:02 | 6915852 Soul Glow
Soul Glow's picture

They both must love lists.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 19:59 | 6915831 ThrowAwayYourTV
ThrowAwayYourTV's picture

My ole man lived the American dream. He paid 14K for our first house on 5.5 acers of land and had a swimming pool put in at that house and every house after that. One before we even moved in.

We took at least 2 travel vacations a year and all he did for a living was drive truck locally.

Anyone born after 1950 is TOAST. The American Dream got stollen by , who knows. Read and read and read and find out for yourself.

Your future is up to you youngsters and it wont be won by crying.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:01 | 6915847 FreeShitter
FreeShitter's picture

I would say after 1970...50's and 60's were still the era one could achieve the dream. After nixon took us off the gold standard, things really became different.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:07 | 6915863 RiverRoad
RiverRoad's picture

Nixon and his bankster friends stole the Dream with the stroke of a pen.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:23 | 6916042 venturen
venturen's picture

yA NOT like Clinton and Obama

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 03:10 | 6916713 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

August 15, 1971.  Wasn't too long after that he resigned and Ford came in without a clue as to why we suddenly had inflation out of control.  Had pins made up (W.I.N.) for "Whip Inflation Now!".  In 71 I was around eleven or so and had no clue either...my ass was busy on the ranch or at school.

I can talk all smug like I figured this shit out eventually, but the truth is that I pretty much was asleep (except for the eighties when I realized I would never be able to retire) until 2008.  TARP woke me up with a shock and the follies that quickly followed pissed me off.  So I started to research what the hell was going on.  I read the worst of the internet, the mediocreargued with liberals, conservatives, commies, libertarians, even read Huffington Post and then read pretty much all the mainstream media I could...then started reading foreign press.  Watched youtube videos on money... stumbled onto schiff, and others.

Then a couple years later, followed a link to zero head and started reading comments.  And back then, the people making comments were awesome.  They had insight inot the minutia of what was going on, could define it in a comprehensible way, and explain why it was so fucked up.

Stupid me, back in 1998-2002, bought a LOT of silver because I liked how the Eagle looked.  A LOT of it in the $4 range via E-Bay.  My dumbass thought $300 gold was too damned expensive.

Commenters here taught me about how our money system works and I simply lurked in awe.  Only after I had watched a bunch of linked videos, resource links and other aids that brought me up to date did I dare ask to join.  And my first comment was stumped by the captcha question, what's the fifth root of five.  I didn't know how to calculate that. Reworded it and made a second attempt...the captcha question was something like add -1515 and -774.  Well I got that one, and introduced my ignorance.

Captcha probably would be good to have back.  At least for the initial post of a session.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:17 | 6915889 algol_dog
algol_dog's picture

But American Corporate boards are doing great. $$$ 

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 19:59 | 6915840 Doppelganger71
Doppelganger71's picture

"When the price of rice becomes more than a man can pay, Heaven ordains a new leader". - Chinese proverb

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:01 | 6915848 atomicwasted
atomicwasted's picture

I hate these articles that cherry pick X great things or X bad things.  You could cherry pick 22 great things at the worst part of the great depression, or 22 bad things at the best times of American history.  Yawn.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:18 | 6915890 monk27
monk27's picture

Why don't you give it a try and cherry pick 22 great things about present day America ? Then we'll talk about it...

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:48 | 6915972 TheFutureIsThePast
TheFutureIsThePast's picture

22 great things about present day America:

1) We have thousands upon thousands of TV channels to choose from!

2) We can obsessively watch the lives of celebrities like never before!

3) We have all the pills you could dream of taking!

4) We don't have to work anymore! That means more time for TV, WOO!

5) We can kill any of our enemies around the world at the blink of an eye! You better not hate America for any arbitrary reason or we'll slaughter your family in the name of freedom, you dirty terrorist!

6) Common Core!

7) McDonalds and Walmart. Cheap and good!

8) Endless debt that lets me buy more stuff! Seriously, look at all the credit cards I have.

9) We can silence anyone we don't agree with. Opinions can be a pain in the ass, you know? Like, just shut up and go along with the majority. You don't know what you're talking about you racist.

10) Um....did I mention the TV channels yet?

22) Counting is hard, so those are the reasons why America is the most exceptional country on the planet.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:54 | 6915985 tarabel
tarabel's picture

 

 

1) Door-to-door ammunition delivery in any quantity you desire...

Do I really need to continue?

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:21 | 6916040 FreeShitter
FreeShitter's picture

2) Dont have to leave your house to score a hot escort. (thanks backpage)

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 22:04 | 6916159 Amish FinEng
Amish FinEng's picture

If I see any of our Amish girls on BP during rumspringa I'm going to report it to the Bishop! It's the only reason I visit BP. Research.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 00:43 | 6916528 847328_3527
847328_3527's picture

23) lots of free shit for a yuuuuuuuuge free shit army.

 

That's something special, right?

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 23:49 | 6916434 macosaurous
macosaurous's picture

I think it points out something is very wrong when we find that the average American lives in a country where he is below average.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:08 | 6915864 goosee
goosee's picture

We need to go to term limits, no exceptions. Bill the baker Bob the plumber go for their term and then go home, live under the laws they created. Social Security Pension and they go back to work.Just as the founding fathers envisioned

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:26 | 6915910 tarabel
tarabel's picture

 

 

While I agree in spirit, I think that it really doesn't matter in practice.

What matters is cutting our Doctor Evil-sized government down to Mini-Me proportions.

It doesn't matter who runs the government if it has no power. 

It also doesn't matter who runs the government if it has tremendous power. 

 

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 05:49 | 6916816 bunnyswanson
bunnyswanson's picture

Dual citizens in your government have a conflict of interest.  If you can take the time and investigate the first time the US govt allowed a dual citizen to become a politician, you may find yourself reading the story of a professional agitator who traveled abroad, along with his avante garde wife, a member of COBRA, during times revolutions, coups and assassinations happened. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_d'%C3%A9tat_and_coup_attempts

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl3.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soshana_Afroyim#Mexico Soshana (Susan) Afroym

"Because of Beys' activities within the Communist Party, the couple left the USA and spent nine months in Cuba, where Soshana had her first exhibition in 1948 at the Circulo de Bellas Artes, Havana.[6] From that time on she used the name "Soshana", the nom de plume Afroyims gave her, meaning "Lily" in Hebrew. After a short stay in the USA, they moved to Europe and eventually to Israel."

 

"

 

"The 1940 Nationality Act

 Section 401 (e) of the 1940 Nationality Act provides that a U.S. citizen, whether by birth or naturalization, "shall lose his [U.S.] nationality by...voting in a political election in a foreign state."

"This law was tested many times. In 1958, for instance, an American citizen named Perez voted in a Mexican election. The case went to the Supreme Court, where the majority opinion held that Perez must lose his American nationality. The court said Congress could provide for expatriation as a reasonable way of preventing embarrassment to the United States in its foreign relations.

But then something very odd happened.

In 1967 an American Jew, Beys Afroyim received an exemption that set a precedent exclusively for American Jews. Afroyim, born in Poland in 1895, emigrated to America in 1912, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1926. In 1950, aged 55, he emigrated to Israel and became an Israeli citizen. In 1951 Afroyim voted in an Israeli Knesset election and in five political elections that followed. So, by all standards he lost his American citizenship -- right? Wrong.

 After living in Israel for a decade, Afroyim wished to return to New York. In 1960, he asked the U.S. Consulate in Haifa for an American passport. The Department of State refused the application, invoking section 401 (e) of the Nationality Act -- the same ruling that had stripped the American citizen named Perez of his U.S. citizenship.

 Attorneys acting for Afroyim took his case to a Washington, DC District Court, which upheld the law. Then his attorneys appealed to the Court of Appeals. This court also upheld the law. The attorneys for Afroyim then moved the case on to the Supreme Court. Here, with Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, Lyndon Johnson's former attorney and one of the most powerful Jewish Americans, casting the swing vote, the court voted five to four in favor of Afroyim. The court held that the U.S. government had no right to "rob" Afroyim of his American citizenship!

 The court, reversing its previous judgment as regards the Mexican American, ruled that Afroyim had not shown "intent" to lose citizenship by voting in Israeli elections. Huh?"

https://www.facebook.com/notes/we-are-all-vittorio-arrigoni/list-of-poli...

 

Every court case I have read which opened the door to foreign exploitaion of USA was a case which sounded like it was cooked up in someone's kitchen, same as Citizens United v SEC.  They created the scenario to create the law strategically, bribes, public ruin and then appointments of cronies to prevent obstacles.

A silent coup is silent but this coup has been screaming from the bottom of her lungs for help since 911.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBRA_%28avant-garde_movement%29

http://www.soshana.net/de/biographie

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:25 | 6915906 assistedliving
assistedliving's picture

a new deli opened on my block.  this is in addition to the other two cattycorner to this one.  I met the Indian owner and asked him why?

he said there's room for his and then under his breath said, i have 5 others and buy cheaper than the competition.  Open 24/7/7.  Point?  1.2B Indians, 1.4B Chinese and people wonder about our 50's, 60's middle class.  It's right under our noses.  Only its Indians, Koreans, Chinese, Mexicans.  

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:46 | 6915966 stacking12321
stacking12321's picture

the correct term is kitty-corner

you can rant about dem furriners taking our jerbs, but i see no problem with what he's doing, it's called free market competition.

if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:02 | 6916003 Vint Slugs
Vint Slugs's picture

The correct term is cater-cornered.  Catty- and kitty- are also allowed.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 22:09 | 6916168 Amish FinEng
Amish FinEng's picture

Depending on your origins, on da flip-side is also acceptable.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 02:31 | 6916672 stacking12321
stacking12321's picture

interesting - i've always heard kitty corner, never heard cater cornered or catty corner before, looks like you are right!

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 22:16 | 6916184 assistedliving
assistedliving's picture

321"0" u reveal more about yourself than understanding.  I applaud dem furriners.  My point was comparing those lost 60's jobs when 1/2 of the world was not even in the market let alone competing is near pointless.  40 hrs + time and a half is over.  whether deli/dry cleaner/delivery or programmer/tech repair/banker.  I think my branch is open 7 days a week now.  The pols can maybe block dem furriners by tariffs, duties, regulations, lawsuits but water seeks its level eventually.  What they should have done is protect us from our own predatory .01%.   Record corp. profitability, CEO pay, benefits, lowest taxes whilst labor got crushed?  where are the pols? (except Sanders) the unions? when u need them?  They're with the pols cutting their deals w/ the .01% screwing the rest of us as usual and there is nothing "free market" about it.  btw, before correcting, learn.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 02:30 | 6916671 stacking12321
stacking12321's picture

if that's the case, then what you were intending to say in your last post, was as clear as mud.

congratulations on your ability to go on a diatribe that is tangential to my comment - did i say anything about the "pols" or the "0.1%"? i don't think so...perhaps you are on some strong medication that makes you hallucinate.

the point was, if your local indian deli provides a product with better quality, or has better cost structure than your other local delis, that's great, it's called competition, it has nothing *AT ALL* to do with the irrelevancies you mention of pols or sanders or unions or other nonsense. competition = free market, if you don't like it, too bad for you, tough, deal with it.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:45 | 6915961 coast
coast's picture

A poster mentioned the 50's and 60's, and another poster thought more the 70's.  Altho this is true, there was money to be made in the 90's.  What I am seeing with my own eyes, is people who made the money in whatver decade, spending it all....The major percentage of what they call "middle class" are people who work for the government.   The lower middle class are people servicing the government workers....And when I say "work for the government" I am talking about contractor jobs also.  I worked the biggest engineering firm in northwest and all our work was government work. If the government ran out of money, we would be worse than a 4th world country.  And most of those who made lotsa money in earlier decades are running out...except the ones who cheated and stole and lied, they are doing fine. bankster money changers..

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 20:58 | 6915993 Biggieshort
Biggieshort's picture

What I see in that list is a plan coming together.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:19 | 6916036 swmnguy
swmnguy's picture

This is what happens when Finance is allowed to take over the economy.  Simple as that.

Our system of finance capitalism using debt at interest as money has to expand forever and always or it will collapse.  Since we live on a finite world, it has to collapse.  If it's artificially kept from collapsing so as to allow contemporary elites to maintain their advantages, then it eats itself.

I don't know what the answer is for us mere mortals, but once I realized about 30 years ago that our system was actually reconstituted Feudalism, I did what I think I would have done 600 years ago in Europe.  I've never had a chance to be an aristocrat and that's fine with me.  There actually are risks to that position.  I also don't want to be a partisan backer pledged to a certain aristocrat or dynastic group.  When a group of Elites fall, their retainers go with them.  I think the best position is that of a trusted procurer to the Elites; not of them or too tightly connected to them, but able to move among them and get paid.

We'll see how it goes.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:21 | 6916039 theusername
theusername's picture

Capitalism. Great idea, but doesn't work in reality. Time to bring back plan economy.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:24 | 6916047 Glasnost
Glasnost's picture

Because we all know that planned economies DO work...just like Venezuela.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:30 | 6916050 venturen
venturen's picture

Capitalism works...CRONYISM, socialism, comunism FAIL. We have cronyism. When the banks failed....explain to me why they receive $4 Trillion Dollars? Take a stab. Capitalism would have had them fail....but after Clinton Banks have become sacred...not the depositors...THE FN BANKERS! 2016...THAT WILL CHANGE

 

Please note Donald HATES BANKERS....

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 22:13 | 6916178 Amish FinEng
Amish FinEng's picture

Donald loves bankers. They finance his CONstruction projects.

Wake the fulk up please.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 06:21 | 6916843 BiPolarFrenchman
BiPolarFrenchman's picture

Destroy the language, destroy the country.  

 

We are not living under capitalism by definition.  Just like we're not living in a democracy.  

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:23 | 6916043 Glasnost
Glasnost's picture

Interesting list but 22 not so much.

2001 and 2007 are deviations from the norm because of the false paper wealth that multiple individual investors had marked down from the stawkcasino.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:24 | 6916046 VW Nerd
VW Nerd's picture

As the petrodollar system slowly dies, I expect these numbers to worsen.  Expect and prepare for a much different world going forward.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:40 | 6916090 gregga777
gregga777's picture

"Unfortunately, “the American Dream” is now dying, and most Americans don’t seem to care."

That's BS. The American People do care. The problem is that the elites and political parasites are deliberately trying to destroy the United States of America from within. The truth is that American election are rigged and the winners are predetermined. If voting worked it would be illegal.

Sunni Muslim President Barrack Hussein Obama has deliberately pursued policies to not only kill the American Dream but to also destroy the United States of America from within. He controls totalitarian police state powers and labels dissenters as terrorists and puts them on the no fly lists.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:48 | 6916106 rick james
rick james's picture

There is not a damn thing wrong with america it is still the land of opportunity the question everyone should be asking themselves am I taking advantage of the opportunities in america I know I did there will always be winners and losers the odds are all the same everyone has a tough time growing up some harder than other what the question should be is how bad do you want the american dream because waiting for someone to give it to you will not happen trust me.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 23:23 | 6916381 Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell's picture

America.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 00:49 | 6916533 847328_3527
847328_3527's picture

It's gone down hill alot but America is still better then many of the alternatives. That's true. However, as newt says, there's a huge disconnect between DC and the people and the nation will keep tumbling downward until that changes.

 

Hard working people can still get ahead while miorities still think they're owed something special even if they do not merit it.

 

Oh yes-- "merit" a word lost from our college admissions offices and HR departments. It's all about "diversity" and "quotas" now. That's one reason ben carson stands out from many of his contemporaries; he still beleives in "achivement" as a path to success as opposed to merely an entitlement attitude.

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 21:50 | 6916111 ajkreider
ajkreider's picture

#6 really is heroically stupid.  The $28k number is the median of W2 forms.  The SSA has 158 million forms for 2014. Yet, the BLS has 148 million employees. 

Hmm, what could it be?  That people fill out more than one W2?  Hell, I filled out one for $200 honorarium last year.  Wonder what that did to the median.

 

 

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 17:00 | 6916398 djsmps
djsmps's picture

Why not start printing the same obvious shit in ten thousand data points?

Sat, 12/12/2015 - 23:50 | 6916435 J2nh
J2nh's picture

"We're all living in Amerika,

Coca Cola, sometimes war."

Rammstein

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 06:16 | 6916837 BiPolarFrenchman
BiPolarFrenchman's picture

good song.  Thanks for the reminder!

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 04:04 | 6916756 surf@jm
surf@jm's picture

No, it will take a total crash and depression, to get rid of entrenched interests.......And the entrenched interests this time around is government at all levels......Federal state, and local government combined, is the largest employer in all 50 states, and have the worst possible efficiency, because the biggest thing they produce is poverty......no goods, or services.......

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 04:22 | 6916768 johmack2
johmack2's picture

it is ALL coming to together, perfectly, the grand feudal system.

 

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 06:05 | 6916829 Faeriedust
Faeriedust's picture

Ah, but propose something that would actually CHANGE that, and watch them scream that it will RAISE THEIR TAXES (that most of them effectively don't even pay).  It's very easy to trick people who are already on the thin financial edge into believing that adding to the total tax burden will break them, ignoring the BENEFITS that they could receive from better policies.  Fear is always stronger than Hope.

It could be changed simply enough by restoring tax policies to those of 1960. (Listen to the screams).  A very useful action would be to de-link payment of welfare from possession of children.  Under today's policies, the only way the poor can receive most government assistance -- even the Earned Income Credit -- is by having kids! That virtually assures that the majority of children will be born to those too poor to care for them properly.  Despite the limits of Welfare Reform on long-term receipt of public assistance, people in that economic stratum have learned a variety of tricks to circumvent every limit.  Most of those tricks involve having children at precisely-spaced intervals.  These children then grow up in households where the other main income source is manufacture and distribution of illegal drugs, with one or more parents intermittently in jail -- or they get confiscated by Social Services and farmed out to yet another family that uses them as the excuse to receive government goodies, now as "foster care assistance payments". Of course, as soon as they hit 18 they are of no use to anyone, and nobody is going to pay for them to attend so much as a community college.  Their options are to sell drugs, have kids, or work like slaves in fast-food or Wal-Mart for the rest of their lives.  Any wonder that the last isn't usually the first choice?

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 10:34 | 6917154 hangemhigh77
hangemhigh77's picture

The problem is the creation of money. Get rid of taxes.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 10:33 | 6917152 hangemhigh77
hangemhigh77's picture

Abolish The Fed. Hang all banksters and politicians for treason. Stop the wars and cut the military 90%. Go back to the gold standard. Let the people's government control the money supply in a Constitutionsl way.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 11:42 | 6917317 sam site
sam site's picture

 

So why does no one care?  Why does 95% of the public display a blind allegiance to the Establishment or government?  It's because we have been poisoned.

The poisoning and handicapping agenda by the globalists is their highest priority because emotionally and mentally

handicapping the public forms the basis of the public capture and domination by these criminals. 

Poisoning the body with vaccines, fluoride, GMOs and chemtrails produces anxiety, depression and apathy that produces a blind loyalty to the globalist-controlled Establishment because it’s

commonly seen as a safe haven to recover.  This is all subconscious and goes unnoticed in the public but forms the basis of the public capture and domination process.

The good news is that heroes like Putin, Trump, the BRICS and a rapidly elevating consciousness evidenced in polls is rising up against these criminal manipulators. 

Polls indicate the public is finally turning off Mainstream Media and rebelling against this long standing evil in our midst.

 

 

 

 

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 13:20 | 6917703 Larry Dallas
Larry Dallas's picture

I see a big, big war on our horizon if anyone but Trump gets in. And a complete deterioration of the American Society. 4 years from now when Tyler does his "Most Read Articles of 2019", we'll see exactly how fast this happened.

My wife and I tried to have kids. After reading this article, I'm so glad we didn't. That's not to say I wouldn't want to. But would it be responsible bringing children in to this mess?

Frankly, it shoudln't matter who I want for president. I don't have any kids, therefore no horse in this race.

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 14:00 | 6917861 Batman11
Batman11's picture

It used to be important that Capitalism was shown to provide a better standard of living for the majority than Communism.

Now Communism has gone and today's ideal is unregulated, trickledown Capitalism.

We had unregulated, trickledown Capitalism in the UK in the 19th Century.

We know what it looks like.

1) Those at the top were very wealthy

2) Those lower down lived in grinding poverty, paid just enough to keep them alive to work with as little time off as possible.

3) Slavery

4) Child Labour

Immense wealth at the top with nothing trickling down.

The beginnings of regulation to deal with the wealthy UK businessman seeking to maximise profit, the abolition of slavery and child labour.

We are on the way to today's ideal.

 

Sun, 12/13/2015 - 14:31 | 6917999 moneybots
moneybots's picture

"Unfortunately, “the American Dream” is now dying, and most Americans don’t seem to care."

 

Untrue.

"No matter who resides in the White House and no matter who controls Congress, the game remains the same and the middle class just continues to suffer."

Calls to congress were 100 to 1 or more against TARP.  Congress passed it anyway.

Most Americans feel helpless.

Congress said the tax payers wouldn't want to bail out the banks again, then passed a bill bailing out the coming derivative losses of the TBTF banks.  The republicans have done the same thing the democrats did.

Most Americans feel helpless.

G20 leaders changed the rules for depositors.  American citizens had no say.  Neither did the citizens of the other 19.

Most Americans feel helpless.  It's not that people don't care, people feel powerless to do anything about it.

I would imagine that most Americans don't want TPP.  The government doesn't care, republican or democrat.  The people have no say.

There is even talk of a brokered republican convention, because the establishment doesn't want Trump to be the nominee.

Fernandez, a billionaire Bush supporter, said he would vote for Hillary, if Trump was the nominee.  TPTB want the people to have no say.  The only choices are meant to be the Goldman Sachs candidates.  R or D, Goldman wins.

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