Why are so many young Americans living at home? Record number of Americans living at home while student debt reaches another record.
While the unemployment rate continues to fall in large part because people are dropping out of the workforce, we reach another record which highlights a difficult economy for young people. A record number of young Americans now live at home. It would be one thing if this was being driven by a desire to stay […]
Long live the reemergence of the FIRE economy: Over the last decade GDP is up $5.2 trillion while the total credit market debt owed is up $24.5 trillion.
The current economy is juiced on the rivers of easy debt. An addiction that is only getting worse. Want to go to college? You’ll very likely go into deep student debt given the rise in college tuition. Want a home? Prices are soaring because of speculation but you’ll need a bigger mortgage to buy. Want […]
Let us count the ways of inflation: While the CPI understates inflation Americans are living out the days of a contracting standard of living.
Americans are experiencing the impacts of inflationary pressures on their pocketbooks. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) used by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics does a poor job of measuring inflation because it uses derivative measures to reflect the price of things we can readily get. The most obvious example is the measure used to […]
Suppressing wages and increasing corporate profits: The tough math behind the current economic recovery.
It should come as no surprise that the stock market is a very poor barometer on the financial health of Americans. We think of the stock market as a temperature gauge on how well Americans are doing. If that is the case, the record breaking highs in the stock market should reflect a very happy […]
The financial feeding of the massively indebted American: Consumer credit owed hits record, permanently high gas prices, and feeding empty promises with food stamp outlays up 600% from 2000.
Americans are now fully engaged, once again, in their consumption ways financed by debt. To continue pretending that the middle class is not shrinking, massive amounts of debt are being pumped into the system once again. Total consumer debt has reached another peak but the reason this has peaked is very troubling. Over the last […]