The Vanishing Class - Middle Class Families Sliding Down Economic Ladder

[AlphaOmega7]

Here's what middle-class families are facing now:

* Spiraling debt burdens: Lower- and middle-income families devoted 20 percent of their income to credit card debt in 2004, and Demos estimates that jumped to 25 percent last year.

Today's median earners actually spend 18 to 32 percent less on clothes and food than their parents did, according to Congressional testimony by credit expert Elizabeth Warren in 2007.

They are walloped by increases of more than 70 percent for health insurance and mortgages. Demos estimates 75 percent of cardholders use credit for basic and extraordinary expenses.

* Falling asset values: Households with mortgages have an average equity of only 20 percent, according to Web site Calculated Risk.com, a record low that erases a backup source of funds for the cash-strapped middle class.

* Spiking unemployment: The official unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent, the highest in 26 years, and many experts say the true rate is approaching 20 percent when under-employed and discouraged workers are included. Most middle-class families have no cushion to ride out job loss - Demos estimates 76 percent lacked the assets to cover three-quarters of basic expenses for three months, even before the recession hit.

Economists are sounding alarms because a healthy middle class is crucial for a healthy economy. Middle-class workers - especially the small business owners who serve as the economy's backbone and pay taxes as individuals - contribute billions to federal and state coffers.

more...http://www.nypost.com/seven/07112009...ass_178755.htm

[Blessedx4]

My understanding of socialism is that Middle class standard of living gets lowered enough so all are equal (basically socialism is just trickle up poverty)

Soon we'll no longer see success as being only limited by our dreams. It's going to be limited by government. How much we "should" be allowed to have evidently.

[AlphaOmega7]

Yep. I definitely agree.

[Blessedx4]

I don't know much about Kudlow but thought this addressed some of what I'm seeing (note I'm certainly not as knowledgeable as most but know enough to understand we're been heading in the wrong direction)

The Road to Economic Demoralization
by Larry Kudlow

There’s no question that current government policies for taxes, spending, and regulation are causing the U.S. to lose competitiveness in the global race for capital, prosperity, and growth.

.......... we may well be losing our competitive edge with Europe. While Europe is ever so slightly moving toward Reagan and Thatcher, the U.S. is shifting toward an overtaxed and overregulated model that smacks of François Mitterrand. That’s something no one should want to tolerate.

Heavy government controls at home, along with an income-leveling social policy couched in economic-recovery terms, is no way to run a railroad. At the simple stroke of a computer key, world investment flows to its most hospitable destination. That includes a reliable currency. But in President Bush’s last year and President Obama’s first, the U.S. has become a less-hospitable destination for global capital. That should worry everybody.

http://townhall.com/columnists/Larry...demoralization

[Flossie]

Economists are sounding alarms because a healthy middle class is crucial for a healthy economy. Middle-class workers - especially the small business owners who serve as the economy's backbone and pay taxes as individuals - contribute billions to federal and state coffers.

And with no middle-class, who, pray tell, is going to pay back the massive billions and billions of dollars of debt that Obama has left your children and grandchildren? The rich sure aren't going to pay it, and the poor can't, and with no middle-class left?

Socialism or no socialism, it's

[mikitta]

it's NOT billions and billions.

It's trillions and trillions. This administration is just bleeding money and expecting the transfusion to come from an impoverished middle class.

God Bless,
mik

[RobinB]

[Flossie]

Originally Posted by mikitta

it's NOT billions and billions.

It's trillions and trillions. This administration is just bleeding money and expecting the transfusion to come from an impoverished middle class.

God Bless,
mik

Well then, Mr. O is gonna get a bit of a shock, isn't he?

[Blessedx4]

My quality of life has definitely sunk since last fall. Our power has gone out at least 4 times for longer than an hour in the last 3 months. Twice for more that 2 days. That's just since March. May seem like it's no big deal but I remember when that didn't happen except in special circumstances. Snow/ice storms or hurricane. Now a thunderstorm comes through and our power goes out. Power grid issues have also become a growing problem. And the utility companies continue to lay people off. What do they think that's going to do to the quality of service?

More and more we're having water break issues too. States instead of paving roads to repair them are just turning them into gravel roads. Things are patched here and there just to keep it running. It's called going backwards imho.

All this is not just some glitches, imho it's all a warning. One day the patches are not going to be enough. And there's no excuse for it. We are doing this to ourselves really. Settling for inferior and poor service. We have resources and ability and there should be no limit to how far we progress scientifically and technologically. It could be that no one is out of work. I lay 99% of the blame for that at the feet of environmentalists and nearsighted politicians. They've sold us out yet we don't hold them accountable and in fact seem intent on giving them more power ((()))

Anyway, our power went off again this morning and I'm ranting ()

[IbeleiveinJesus]

Originally Posted by Blessedx4

I don't know much about Kudlow but thought this addressed some of what I'm seeing (note I'm certainly not as knowledgeable as most but know enough to understand we're been heading in the wrong direction) [/url]

I adore Kudlow... periodically a bit too much on the sunny side, but he is definitely a cheerleader for the free markets..

-Ted

[Flagboy]

Said it before... I'll say it again...


One
Big
A+
Mistake
America

[Cricket55]

Sad to see this happening in our country, but guess that what happens when you do not do what you should do.

[oldno74]

That's why Obama is trying to pass Cap and Trade tax. He'll get the $ from us using electric, gas, coal, etc... Many big manufacturers are going to close the doors or move over seas to avoid the HUGE tax. Your electric and natural gas companies are going to raise your bills by A LOT!!

Our country is run by a communist government. That's what happens when its run by non christian liberals! It won't be long and we will look like the Soviet Union

I pray our Lord is coming soon!!!!

[Blessedx4]

Originally Posted by oldno74

That's why Obama is trying to pass Cap and Trade tax. He'll get the $ from us using electric, gas, coal, etc... Many big manufacturers are going to close the doors or move over seas to avoid the HUGE tax. Your electric and natural gas companies are going to raise your bills by A LOT!!

Our country is run by a communist government. That's what happens when its run by non christian liberals! It won't be long and we will look like the Soviet Union

I pray our Lord is coming soon!!!!

Microsoft has already said it'd leave the country if Obama enacts some of the things he's planning.

Obama is a union man, that's obvious. His policies wind up punishing business and bleeding success (as in sucking the life out of it). So we are not going to see good economic times for some time. He knows it too & that's why he keeps extending his 'recovery' further and further out - yesterday I was reading it's going to take "years"

[Flossie]

Does Mr. O think the US economy is going to recover if present and all future manufacturing companies go overseas instead of in the US? He can't be that stupid, surely.

It was the unions' high wages and mfg's high taxes and costs that made many industries leave for other countries anyway (Mexico/Taiwan/Pakistan/China). Mr. O thinks that making things even harder is going to solve the problem? !

Mr. O (as a union man) is going to do to the US, as a country, what many unions have done to the manufacturing industries, and I don't think I need to explain that one.

Ever seen an entire nation go bankrupt? I shouldn't think it will be a pretty sight.