The rise of the dollar store – catering to a disappearing middle class with shrinking incomes has made dollar stores prosper in the last decade. In last decade Family Dollar grew by 62 percent in store count while U.S. population only went up by 8 percent.
Dollar stores for most Americans carry an odd sort of stigma. In the past, these locations were seen as shopping hubs for the poor only. Yet as we all know many in the once strong American middle class were thrown off the prosperity treadmill and into lower income brackets. While companies struggle with growing dollar […]
Manias, implosions, and financial disasters – the unsustainable nature of our current debt based financial system.
Trying to induce inflation to reduce accumulated debt is not a modern invention. Dr. Carmen Reinhart and Dr. Kenneth Rogoff trace this kind of financial crisis and others back to the Dionysius of Syracuse during the 4th century. The debasement of currency also occurred in the Roman empire and Byzantine empire and as usual printing […]
A brave new banking system – while public is told banking system is healthy FDIC quietly grows troubled bank list by 180 and adds over 1,600 employees in the last two years to deal with bank failures.
The banking system in the United States rests on a very thin layer of faith and that faith has been shaken by the current financial crisis. The retail banking system is largely a facade that now latches on to taxpayer bailouts to fund speculative investments through their investment banking divisions. The repeal of Glass-Steagall has […]
Working for less – Aggregate hours worked in U.S. economy from all workers moves back to February 1999 levels. 25 million Americans out of work or looking for full-time work as middle class continues to shrink.
The economy continues to sputter along and the weak employment report only adds more doubt for a summer recovery. As if the American worker was in a position to support more economic bad news? Many are now looking at new methods of measuring employment in our economy since the headline unemployment rate has failed to […]