The math on US income – if you call something the middle make sure you are using math. The surprising details on median household income and per capita wages.
People have a hard time wrapping their minds around household and personal income.   It is an easy enough concept to understand but some throw around terminology that confuses the facts. For example $250,000 is not middle class income if we define it from a strictly mathematical model. The median household income in the US is […]
Who controls the wealth in the US? Western countries expand balance sheets at the expense of their younger population.
If the debates reflected the true interest of what Americans have on their mind the entire debate would revolve around the slow erosion of the US middle class. Yet this is something that will only be a footnote and for any discussions that do come up the specifics will be lacking. The reality is we […]
When it costs more to be poor – Fed and government shifting inflation onto rent, medical care, and food. QE3 to widen the gap between the poor and the wealthy.
Inflation has been picking up since the recession ended in 2009. The problem with the CPI increasing year over year with no rise in household incomes is that the standard of living for most Americans erodes every year that incomes do not keep up. Household incomes are back to levels last seen in the mid-1990s […]
Deleveraging from one bubble to another – $6.2 trillion in mortgage debt was added between 2000 and 2008. Since the peak in 2008 $1.3 trillion in US household debt is gone but another bubble is brewing hidden under the rubble of the busted housing market.
There is some interesting data on the deleveraging that is occurring with the American household. Since the peak in Q3 of 2008, US households have lowered their outstanding debt by $1.3 trillion. It is important to understand how this deleveraging is occurring. First of all, Americans are largely paying down existing debts much faster and […]