Young riding out recession by going into debt for college: Millennial unemployment jumps by two percent.
As the animal spirits of the economy rage wild, there are still difficult challenges ahead for younger Americans. While the stock market is up highlighting corporate euphoria, many companies are doing this with 4 million fewer workers. So the economic recovery is not evenly distributed and they rarely are. Yet younger Americans are still facing [...]
Are we reaching a tipping point in the stock market? 4 million fewer jobs from peak but corporate profits at record levels. Consumer confidence dips yet stocks keep moving up.
As the Dow flirted with 14,000 and the S&P 500 hit 1,500 the typical American is losing their confidence and also reflects a stock market that diverges from the interests of the Americans worker. Given that many of the S&P 500 companies earn a sizable portion of their profits abroad, it is hard to see [...]
Inflation unchained: US dollar down 23 percent from 2000, Tuition up 72 percent, and home values up 44 percent. Incomes adjusting for inflation are back to 1990s levels.
It is hard to believe that people in the US are still denying the obvious impact of inflation. The slow erosion of purchasing power has occurred for many decades now. What people tend to forget in a completely fiat based system is that the Fed can print as much money as it likes. And they [...]
Can you live in California on a $60,000 a year household income? Living the middle class lifestyle in California on $60,000 a year.
Can you live comfortably in California making $60,000 a year? It really depends on what you define as comfortably. We should note that the median household income in the US is $50,000 and in California it isn’t much higher. California gets a notorious rap of being an expensive state but this is if the entire [...]
What does Detroit say about the working class in the US? City has lost over 25 percent of its population since 2000. People take scrap metal from old buildings to export to China.
One of the biggest examples of the US eroding its working class is through the example of Detroit. The city of Detroit has lost a stunning 25 percent of its population between 2000 and 2010. Poverty is rampant with 3 out of 5 kids living below the poverty line. It is a startling revelation of [...]
Are we missing critical inflation data with the CPI? How the government over time has altered the CPI to under report inflation.
Most Americans realize that their standard of living has decreased. Many realize today that their dollars do not go as far as they once did. We try to reflect this data via the Consumer Price Index but over the last few decades, this index has been adjusted to suit the needs of those producing the [...]
Income Based Repayment plan cementing inflated higher education costs for graduate school: How new IBR Pay as you Earn plan will be a big win for graduate students and keep college costs high. Student debt to hit $1.8 trillion in 2020.
It is interesting that the two segments in our economy mired in debt, housing and higher education, were largely inflated courtesy of easy access to debt. New rules on how students pay back their student debt including the Income Based Repayment plan ironically will keep prices inflated. The new program dubbed “Pay as you Earn” [...]
Is the stock market a sham for the middle class? Retail investors expected to pull out $475 billion in funds. Volatility index under pricing real risks.
The stock market is largely a source of entertainment or awe for most Americans instead of being a true source of wealth. In the United States roughly 42 percent of all financial wealth is aggregated with one percent of the population. One third of Americans have no savings at all so for this group, the [...]
Federal Reserve bubble escape clause: The master of bubble creation talks about preventing future bubbles and other circular banking logic. Fed aggressively buying securities outright.
It is no secret that the Federal Reserve is aggressively buying up a variety of securities and storing them in their opaque balance sheet. The Fed in essence has become the bad bank and has served as the conduit to support bad banking policy. There seems to be a policy of slowly shrinking the middle [...]
US median household income trap: Four decades of data and households struggling to keep up with inflation. Younger Americans face bigger income struggles.
Household income growth in the US has largely been absent for well over a decade if we adjust for inflation. This is important because people truly care about what their money can purchase. What use is it getting a $1 raise if healthcare went up $2? What use is it that you are earning $1,000 [...]
