Diving into the fiscal economic mess – Fiscal cliff a reckoning for decades of poor financial management and massive debt based spending.
The media is making it appear that the fiscal cliff is a sudden event. Like a countdown to a New Year’s party. Yet this cliff was as predictable more than a decade ago as we spent more than we took in as an economy. The challenge is real because our spending is so much more [...]
Recession probabilities – For the 50 million Americans in poverty the probability of a recession is 100 percent. Growing economic divide for working class.
The probabilities of the US slipping into another official recession are growing. Don’t tell this to the 50 million people that are reportedly at the poverty level according to a new US Census report. This trend isn’t something new and it certainly is not going to be resolved overnight. We have nearly 47 million Americans [...]
Young, educated, and deep in debt – College debt over 18 percent of all consumer debt. Half of college graduates under 25 are unemployed or working in a field where no degree is required.
I doubt anyone is opposed to education or advancing your knowledge in life. Who can oppose something so valuable? Now this lofty aspiration is great but becomes problematic especially when the cost of higher education has gotten so expensive. How expensive you ask? The fact that we have over $1 trillion in student loans outstanding [...]
When the financial clock strikes zero – Half of Americans pass away with nearly zero wealth. The middle class has contracted by ten percent in the last 40 years.
A recent study demonstrates the precarious financial position many Americans find their lives in. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that nearly half of Americans pass away penniless. The exact figures were sobering stating that many of these Americans end up with no financial assets including home wealth and typically rely heavily on Social [...]
The other side of persistently high unemployment – Underemployment rate shoots up to 15 percent but is actually more problematic because of the civilian employment-population ratio.
Spending time examining the employment report shows continuing trends that appear beyond the headline figures. The number of Americans unemployed or marginally attached to the work-force increased to 15 percent and appears to be a new staple of our current workforce. A key data point is the civilian employment-population ratio that shows a continuing drop. [...]
The burden of unsupportable debt. US debt-to-GDP growing at a pace rivaling certain European nations – The dramatic problems of peak debt in 2012.
What makes this global financial crisis unique is that it is based on unsustainable levels of debt. In historical cases you would have sovereign nations defaulting on their debts but these were more isolated and clustered, not global issues. Today virtually every large crisis that is hitting is occurring because of peak debt situations. No [...]
The curious calculus of the US employment numbers – Decline of 2.4 million in extended and emergency unemployment benefits coincides with 2.2 million rise in disability benefits. Last time we had 8.1 percent unemployment rate we had 14,000,000 fewer Americans on food stamps.
The math on the employment situation in the US simply does not compute. Over the last few years, many have escaped the employment market by diving into massive student loan debt. This looks good for the employment figures since these people are not counted as part of the workforce. The headline unemployment rate of 8.1 [...]
How does an America with no middle class look like? Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects top two jobs for the next decade will pay roughly $20,000 a year. Approval rating of Congress at 10 percent. In comparison, Americans approved of BP’s handling of the Gulf oil crisis at a 16 percent rate.
A strong middle class has been at the core of what has been promoted as the American Dream. How would America look like if the middle class simply vanished? We may not need to wait too long at the current rate since we are quickly siphoning people off the middle class and throwing them into [...]
Hitting the credit card wall – Credit card debt contracts 17 percent as the grand American household deleveraging continues. Average household with credit card debt carries $16,000 at an average rate of 15% – Real broke housewives. Orange County California witnesses a 600 percent jump in bankruptcies.
Credit card debt has become a big financial albatross for many American families. According to the Federal Reserve Survey on Consumer Finance over 176 million credit cardholders exist in the United States. This is an amazing figure when you actually think about what a credit card is. A credit card essentially allows you to spend [...]
The great deleveraging event – household debt has fallen 4 percent since recession hit. Household debt has fallen dramatically from the peak when household debt aligned itself with annual GDP.
The debt bubble bursting has jammed the bottom line of American households. Debt and money are synonymous for many households in our current economy. The ability to spend, or buying capacity, is looked at in the same light as savings from many in the financial sector. This is why data recently released shows the balance [...]
