Feb 16 2012

American incomes and low wage America – top 1 percent earn above $343,927, top 5 percent above $154,643, top 10 percent above $112,124, top 25 percent above $66,193, top 50 percent above $32,396 – Over 68,500,000 tax filers, 50 percent of the country, make $32,000 a year or less. Food stamp usage peaks at over 46 million.

A recent report regarding income has thrown a few people off.  I think many Americans fail to realize how many people are barely making it day to day financially.  Do people realize that we still have 46,000,000+ Americans on food stamps and this coincides perfectly with the booming market in dollar stores?  These are not glamorous economic metrics for the global economic super power.  Hard to believe but the truth is the working and middle class has been squeezed over the last few decades.  This goes beyond politics and is completely driven by the aggregation of financial power.  The grim reality is that even after the grandest collapse since the Great Depression not one strong piece of legislation has been passed to curb the investment banking casino.  More to the recent report, the latest tax data on incomes shows how many Americans are simply getting by.

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Feb 14 2012

The day of reckoning for global total debt – total credit market debt up from $28 trillion in 2001 to $53 trillion in 2012. US consumer debt went up in last few months but largely because of giant amounts of student loan debt taken on.

You have to really question what passes for financial analysis these days.  One financial show was discussing the recent increase in consumer debt as something positive.  In the same breath this person also said that households increased savings.  Now think about this statement.  If you financed a $2,000 vacation on your credit card but increased savings by $500 did your balance sheet improve?  Of course not.  Let us not even dive into the fact that most of the recent consumer debt increase has come at the hands of student debt which is already in a massive bubble.  We are simply repeating the same mistakes with a different soundtrack.  We are trying to get out of a debt led crisis with more debt.  The facts even show this and we have compiled some of the more troubling data by putting the entire debt market into perspective here.  Is it really possible to solve a problem based on too much debt with more debt?

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Feb 11 2012

United States of Dollar Stores – dollar stores see a rise in households making $70,000 a year or higher as a customer base. What does the rise of dollar stores say about the middle class?

Before 2000 dollar stores were largely seen as a bazaar of quirky trinkets and plastic oddities.  Many sold excess volume of products, even selling old Super Bowl t-shirts of teams that did not win.  Yet the dollar store of today is not the one of even one decade ago.  The disillusionment of the middle class and the rise of a low-wage American worker base have created a booming business for dollar stores.  Customers from more affluent backgrounds are now shopping at these stores because of an economic caution about their declining purchasing power.  Even in the midst of the boom in the stock market we still have over 45,000,000+ Americans receiving food assistance.  I talked about this large segment of our population in EBT Nation.  What does the rise of the dollar store tell us about the future of the American economy?

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Feb 8 2012

The banking protection racket – 5 charts highlighting the laundering and dismantling of the middle class. New methods of looking at employment. Peak debt and tweaking statistics.

Part of the crushing blow to the middle class is the misinformation being lobbed out as good economic news.  For example, inflation is increasing yet the average American worker pulls in $25,000 per year.  You also have the civilian population ratio still at levels last seen three decades ago.  It depends on how you look at the data and how much spin you can tolerate.  Should we be jumping up and down for joy that many Americans are now getting low paying jobs with absolutely no long-term security?  As we analyzed in a previous article, in the early 1980s some 60 percent of American workers had some sort of pension.  Even if it was minimal, it was something.  Today it is down to 20 percent and quickly evaporating lower.  Since we have become a debt addicted nation, the fact that household debt has contracted many Americans are now actually “poorer” and definitely feel it.  Consumption makes up a large portion of GDP so this is a potential problem with households facing a major contraction.

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