Vanishing middle class…..

The wealth of American families plummeted by 38.8 per cent between 2007 and 2010, according to fresh data from the Federal Reserve, highlighting the deep damage inflicted by the housing crash, financial crisis and recession on the economic health of US households.

According to the Fed’s survey of consumer finances, which is released every three years, the median net worth of US families declined from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 two years ago, as millions of Americans witnessed a sharp drop in the value of their homes, in many cases their main investment.

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The fall in wealth due to the mortgage collapse more than offset the gains of the housing boom. In 2004, family median net worth as measured by the same survey was $107,200, while in 2001 it was $106,100, meaning even much of the benefit of the economic expansion of the 1990s was wiped away.

In its report, the Fed noted that families living in the west with a head of household between 35 and 44 years old bore the brunt of the hit to the net worth, since “housing was a larger share of their assets”.

As their wealth plummeted, many Americans also suffered a steep drop in median income, with unemployment and underemployment rising. According to the Fed study, median income fell 7.7 per cent between 2007 and 2010, a sharp acceleration from a small decline in the previous three years.

Read full article.

2012/06/07

Penguin: DEAR AMERICA You Should Be Mad As Hell About This [CHARTS]

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Commerce, Corruption, Government

DEAR AMERICA: You Should Be Mad As Hell About This [CHARTS]

In November, Americans will have a chance to speak their minds.

And there's one thing everyone should agree on:

America just isn't working right now.

It's not just Americans who aren't working. It's America itself, a country whose economy once worked for almost everyone, not just the rich.

In the old America, if you worked hard, you had a good chance of moving up.

In the old America, the fruits of people's labors accrued to the whole country, not just the top.

In the old America, there was a strong middle class, and their immense collective purchasing power drove the economy for decades.

unemployment in perspective — Click on Image to Enlarge

No longer.

Over the past couple of decades, the disparity between “the 1%” and everyone else has hit a level not seen since the 1920s. And there is a widespread and growing sense that life here is not fair or right.

If America cannot figure out a way to fix these problems, the country will likely become increasingly polarized and de-stabilized. And if that happens, the recent “Occupy” protests will likely be only the beginning.

The problem in a nutshell is this:

In the never-ending tug-of-war between “labor” and “capital,” there has rarely—if ever—been a time when “capital” was so clearly winning.

And that's not just unfair.

It's un-American.

Let's go to the charts..(50 of them).

In fact, income inequality has gotten so extreme here that the US now ranks 93rd in the world in “income equality.” China's ahead of us. So is India. So is Iran.

Phi Beta Iota: The actual unemployment rate in the USA is 22.4%. Anyone that does not know this is part of the problem. Anyone that knows this and conceals it from the public is part of the corruption that has created the problem.

See Also:

Shadow Statistic Website

Josh Kilbourn: US Disability & Food Stamp Welfare Skyrocketing

Mini-Me: Economists Scoff at Obama, Romney Job-Creation Myths

Paul Craig Roberts: December Net Jobs a 12,000 LOSS – Actual Unemployment 2.6 Times Official Rate or 22.4%

2012/06/06

Josh Kilbourn: US Labor Market Is In A Full-Blown Depression

03 Economy, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government

US Labor Market Is In A Full-Blown Depression

Tyler Durden

ZeroHedge, 6 June 2012

Now that stocks are back to reflecting nothing more than expectations of how many times the Chairsatan dilutes the existing monetary base in a carbon copy replica of not only 2011 but also 2010… and 2009 (because contrary to what purists may believe, the only way to inflate away unsustainable debt in a growth-free economy is by destroying the currency), and manic pattern chasers have crawled out of their holes proclaiming the death of the bear market after a two day bounce, what is happening in the actual economy, no longer reflected by the market, has once again been pulled back to the backburner.

burger flipper — Fastest Growing Job in USA

Which is sad, because while ever fewer people reap the benefits of artificial, centrally-planned S&P rallies, the rest of the population suffers, and what is worse: hope for a quiet, middle-class life is now an endangered species. Nowhere is this more evident than in the following list from David Rosenberg which summarizes how, quietly, the US labor force slipped back into a full-blown depression.

From David Rosenberg:

One Sick Labor Market

There were so many disturbing elements to the May jobs data that we're not sure we can do justice to the litany of disappointments (with some help from our friends at the Investor's Business Daily):

The share of long-term unemployment is at its highest level since the Great Depression (42%).
Fully 54% of college degree graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.
45 million Americans are on food stamps — one in seven residents.
47% of Americans are on some form of government assistance.
The employment-to-population ratio for 25-54 year olds is now 75.7%, lower than it was when the recession supposedly ended in June 2009.
The number of people not in the labour force has swelled eight million since the recession ended; absent that effect, the unemployment rate would be 12% right now (about the same as President Obama's election chances would be).
The number of people confident enough to leave their jobs fell 11% in May
for the second month in a row to 891k, the lowest since November 2010.
The ranks of the unemployed who have been looking fruitlessly for work for at least 27 weeks jumped 310k in May, the sharpest increase since May 2011.
The unemployment rate for males aged 16-19 is 27% and for males between 20 and 24 it is 13%. Draw your own conclusions from a social (in)stability standpoint.
One in seven Americans are either unemployed or underemployed.
Only one in six of the youth are working full-time and three-in-five are living with their folks or another relative (as per the NYT).
A mere 16% of the 2009-2011 graduating class has found full-time work, while 22% are working part-time. Even those hired from 2006-08, just 23% are working full-time.
According to a poll cited in the NYT, just 14% of high-school grads today believe they will have a more successful financial future than their parents Line of the day, as depressing as it is, comes from an 18-year old: “Thank God I had a buddy at Burger King who could help me out”. Fast-food has emerged as the fast-growing industry in a country once led by technology. Even tech now is fuelled more by companies that produce nifty consumer gadgets and feed our narcissistic needs than those who focus on improving the nation's capital stock which is the ultimate trailblazer for productivity growth and durable gains in our standard-of-living.

2012/06/052012/06/05

Paul Craig Roberts: Collapse at Hand – and ONE THING an Honest Government Could Do To Make It All Right

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, General Accountability Office, Government, Law Enforcement, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Office of Management and Budget

Collapse At Hand

Ever since the beginning of the financial crisis and quantitative easing, the question has been before us: How can the Federal Reserve maintain zero interest rates for banks and negative real interest rates for savers and bond holders when the US government is adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt every year via its budget deficits? Not long ago the Fed announced that it was going to continue this policy for another 2 or 3 years. Indeed, the Fed is locked into the policy. Without the artificially low interest rates, the debt service on the national debt would be so large that it would raise questions about the US Treasury’s credit rating and the viability of the dollar, and the trillions of dollars in Interest Rate Swaps and other derivatives would come unglued.

In other words, financial deregulation leading to Wall Street’s gambles, the US government’s decision to bail out the banks and to keep them afloat, and the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy have put the economic future of the US and its currency in an untenable and dangerous position. It will not be possible to continue to flood the bond markets with $1.5 trillion in new issues each year when the interest rate on the bonds is less than the rate of inflation. Everyone who purchases a Treasury bond is purchasing a depreciating asset. Moreover, the capital risk of investing in Treasuries is very high. The low interest rate means that the price paid for the bond is very high. A rise in interest rates, which must come sooner or later, will collapse the price of the bonds and inflict capital losses on bond holders, both domestic and foreign.

The question is: when is sooner or later? The purpose of this article is to examine that question.

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: Collapse at Hand – and ONE THING an Honest Government Could Do To Make It All Right”

2012/06/032012/06/03

Mini-Me: Obama Moves To Crush Poland After Global Genetic Disaster Revealed

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Key Players

Huh?

Obama Moves To Crush Poland After Global Genetic Disaster Revealed

By: Sorcha Faal

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs report circulating in the Kremlin today states that United States President Obama has undertaken a campaign to “crush” the nation of Poland after its government this past week officially banned the planting of Monsanto’s MON810, a genetically-modified (GM) variety of maize (corn) that produces its own built-in Bt insecticide in every kernel and is held to be responsible for the global collapse of bee populations and the catastrophic killing of all bat species in North America.

To understand Obama’s anger against Poland and his ties to the most dangerous food ever known to man we can read as reported by Ronnie Cummins, Founder and Director of the Organic Consumers Association:

President Obama knows that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the policy and regulatory powers of government. On the campaign trail in 2007, he promised:

“We'll tell ConAgra that it's not the Department of Agribusiness. It's the Department of Agriculture. We're going to put the people's interests ahead of the special interests.”

But, starting with his choice for USDA Secretary, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack (who in a stunning reversal greenlighted Monsanto’s genetically modified alfalfa without testing), Obama has let Monsanto, DuPont and the other pesticide and genetic engineering companies know they'll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration.

President Obama has taken his team of food and farming leaders directly from the biotech companies and their lobbying, research, and philanthropic arms.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Obama Moves To Crush Poland After Global Genetic Disaster Revealed”

2012/05/302012/05/30

Chuck Spinney: Global Moral Downside of Privatizing US Military Support

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Military

In the late 1980s, under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, the Pentagon began to privatise many of the military's support services that had traditionally be done soldiers, sailors, and airmen — laundries, dining halls, security guards, cleaning latrines, some supply functions, etc. It was argued at the time that this would save money and free up troops for combat duties, thus increasing the tooth-to-tail ratio of our military forces. According to this logic, fact that we were fielding an army that could not feed itself or wash its own laundry was deemed to be a cost-effective contributor to combat power. Of course, the only real result was to transfer another large part of the defense budget to the defense contractors and open up vast new opportunities for price gouging.

It is an undeniable fact that, despite a massive move to privatization of support functions by the Pentagon, the tooth-to-tail ratio continued to get worse during the 1990s and in the subsequent decade, the daily cost per unit of deployed combat power, be it troops marching in the mud, flying hours, ship steaming hours, or tank miles driven, etc continued to increase at a rate much faster than the overall defense budget increased.<

As a result, two relatively low-tempo, small wars (compared to Korea or Vietnam) — i.e., Iraq and Afghanistan — have now cost more than any war America has fought, save WWII (in inflation adjusted dollars). Privatization — the neoliberal panacea for all things according to the adherents of the Chicago School of economics — may have created bloated profits for the MICC, fomented the rise of private armies, like Blackwater, and increased the corruption that naturally takes place among war profiteers, but the result has been a disaster for our nation.<

The below article in Le Monde Diplomatique is a good, albeit disgusting, example of how the privatization of public enterprise works in the real world of America's permanent war economy.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Global Moral Downside of Privatizing US Military Support”

2012/05/292012/05/29

Mini-Me: “Inside Job” Director Charles Ferguson: Wall Street Has Turned the U.S. into a “Predatory Nation”

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement

Huh?

“Inside Job” Director Charles Ferguson: Wall Street Has Turned the U.S. into a “Predatory Nation”

Two years after directing the Academy Award-winning documentary, “Inside Job,” filmmaker Charles Ferguson returns with a new book, “Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America.” Ferguson explores why no top financial executives have been jailed for their role in the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We also discuss Larry Summers and the revolving door between academia and Wall Street, as well as the key role Democrats have played in deregulating the financial industry. According to Ferguson, a “predatory elite” has “taken over significant portions of economic policy and of the political system, and also, unfortunately, major portions of the economics discipline.” Click here to see Part 2 of this interview. [includes rush transcript]

Charles Ferguson, the Academy Award-winning director of Inside Job, a documentary about the financial crisis. His film on the war in Iraq, No End in Sight, was nominated for an Academy Award. His new book is called Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America.

WATCH VIDEO

Phi Beta Iota: We strongly disagree on where the blame should be placed. The two-party tyranny, and corrupt Senators and Representatives, are the ones who have committed treason in betrayal of the public trust. Nothing Wall Street has done would have been possible without the combination of “control fraud” (failure of the Executive to enforce laws and regulations) and corruption (outright legalization of crime by corrupt Members in return for specified 5% bribes). There is nothing wrong with the United States of America that cannot be fixed, and fixed quickly, merely by flushing the two-party tyranny and all political incumbents (both executive and legislative), down the toilet. This is a state and local problem as well, not just a national problem.

Category: Commerce

DefDog: Vanishing Middle Class – Lost 38% Wealth in 3 Years