Saturday Reads Around The Internets - Middle Class Economic Armageddon

[hvactec]

Foreclosures being down from a year ago, is an artificial statistic. What happened was banks were busted for robo-signing and committing fraud when foreclosing on people. Of course our government is doing little and now banks have a green light to ramp up their foreclosure mills once again. RealtyTrac:

U.S. foreclosure activity has been mired down since October of last year, when the robo-signing controversy sparked a flurry of investigations into lender foreclosure procedures and paperwork,” said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “While foreclosure activity in September and the third quarter continued to register well below levels from a year ago, there is evidence that this temporary downward trend is about to change direction, with foreclosure activity slowly beginning to ramp back up.


More Chinese Than Americans Can Put Food on Their Table

Here's a prime example of how America has offshore outsourced their economy to other countries. more Americans are going hungry than Chinese:

The number of Americans who lack access to basic necessities like food and health care is now higher than it was at the peak of the Great Recession, a survey released Thursday found. And in a finding that could worsen fears of U.S. decline, the share of Americans struggling to put food on the table is now three times as large as the share of the Chinese population in the same position.


American's Household Income Plummets

A private research group, Sentier, has a new study out showing household income dropped 6.7% but after the so-called recovery.

In the two years after the recession officially ended in June 2009, the median household income continued to plummet, dropping by more than $3,500 to $49,909. That represents a decline of 6.7% in the first two years of the recovery, more than twice the rate of decline experienced during the recession.


2 Million More Unemployed to Stop Receiving Unemployment Benefits

The Wall Street Journal's number of the week shows:

2,153,700: The number of jobless people currently receiving unemployment benefits who will lose them by Feb. 11, 2012 if an extension isn’t enacted by Congress by the end of the year.

A Lost Decade for the U.S. Middle Class

It's rare to hear focus on main street in the evening news. This CBS article does a round up of U.S. citizens are suffering facts after it dawned on CBS that their audience is now poor.

Food pantries picked over. Incomes drying up. Shelters bursting with the homeless. Job seekers spilling out the doors of employment centers. College grads moving back in with their parents. The angry and disillusioned filling the streets.

Pan your camera from one coast to the other, from city to suburb to farm and back again, and you'll witness scenes like these. They are the legacy of the Great Recession, the Lesser Depression, or whatever you choose to call it.

read more Saturday Reads Around The Internets - Middle Class Economic Armageddon | The Economic Populist

 

[Katzndogz]

Obama did a superb job in just 3 years! This is all his fault, him and his marxist policies.

 

[editec]

Its always been a depression economy for the lower classes.

Now its becoming a depression for the middle classes.

Pretending that this nation has ONE economy has always been thye big fat lie that we've been fed, folks.

 

[Wiseacre]

As I understand it, household incomes are lower now than they were when the recession officially ended 2 years ago. Let me know when you guys get fed up with the Obama policies that have not improved economic conditions under his watch.

 

[kiwiman127]

As I understand it, household incomes are lower now than they were when the recession officially ended 2 years ago. Let me know when you guys get fed up with the Obama policies that have not improved economic conditions under his watch.

Well, conditions haven't improved under Obama. No one can argue that.
But much which happening is due to around three decades of wages for the most part, not keeping up with inflation. During this same time period the Middle Class's share of the National Income started a steady trend downwards.
The influx of illegals and the outflow of jobs overseas hasn't helped either and both of those aren't new phenomenons.
This steady and ongoing decline of the Middle Class has been going on for quite awhile and only recently did people catch on.
In 2006, Lou Dobbs wrote a book called "War on the Middle Class" and it sold over a million copies. Dobbs also featured a segment on his show on CNN that covered the plight of the Middle Class (probably to sell more books). It's a fact that Lou Dobbs was a key player in the growth of awareness of the class warfare against the Middle Class in 2006.
Now the lack of recovery on the Middle Class after the Great Recession has recently been highlighted when in fact isn't that new at all.
Just another thought. I am hell-bend on arguing for the Middle Class/Main Street America and I get classified as a lefty. The Middle Class still is an by a huge margin, the largest segment of this countries population. Through the ages, it has always showed that having a healthy Middle Class is healthy for a country. When wealth is disproportionate, countries economies flounders. There will always be a wealthy class and that's not bad, but what is bad is when they control too much wealth. It's just not healthy for the future of a country's economic stability as history consistently shows. Being pro-Middle Class is being pro-American without any ideological barriers.

 

[Wiseacre]

As I understand it, household incomes are lower now than they were when the recession officially ended 2 years ago. Let me know when you guys get fed up with the Obama policies that have not improved economic conditions under his watch.

Well, conditions haven't improved under Obama. No one can argue that.
But much which happening is due to around three decades of wages for the most part, not keeping up with inflation. During this same time period the Middle Class's share of the National Income started a steady trend downwards.
The influx of illegals and the outflow of jobs overseas hasn't helped either and both of those aren't new phenomenons.
This steady and ongoing decline of the Middle Class has been going on for quite awhile and only recently did people catch on.
In 2006, Lou Dobbs wrote a book called "War on the Middle Class" and it sold over a million copies. Dobbs also featured a segment on his show on CNN that covered the plight of the Middle Class (probably to sell more books). It's a fact that Lou Dobbs was a key player in the growth of awareness of the class warfare against the Middle Class in 2006.
Now the lack of recovery on the Middle Class after the Great Recession has recently been highlighted when in fact isn't that new at all.
Just another thought. I am hell-bend on arguing for the Middle Class/Main Street America and I get classified as a lefty. The Middle Class still is an by a huge margin, the largest segment of this countries population. Through the ages, it has always showed that having a healthy Middle Class is healthy for a country. When wealth is disproportionate, countries economies flounders. There will always be a wealthy class and that's not bad, but what is bad is when they control too much wealth. It's just not healthy for the future of a country's economic stability as history consistently shows. Being pro-Middle Class is being pro-American without any ideological barriers.

I have not read Dobbs' book, I'll take a look when I get the chance. Gotta say however that I do not like the title, there's no war going on to screw the middle class. Rich guys do not lay awake at night thinking of ways to destroy or just harm the MC or those lower income folks.

I do think that the rich guys and big corps do have too much influence in Washington, and it looks to me like both sides are just as guilty of being influenced. I suspect the level of influence is a bit overblown, it's not like they are totally dominant. But going to some kind of flat tax where there are few or no deductions, exemptions, breaks, and loopholes for both individuals and businesses would be a good thing. And a reform of campaign finance to ensure transparency for who is behind the political commercials we see on TV and also who gives amounts over say $500.00, without exceptions for anybody.

The other answer I would give for the inequality of incomes is to work on increasing competition and reducing regulations to foment more small businesses. I want to see more people moving up the income ladder rather than more rich people moving down.

I'm okay with a tax hike on incomes exceeding a million bucks or so, once the economy is more stable and growing at a 4% rate or so. I am also okay with reducing gov't spending at a more gradual rate, along with reforming the various entitlements.