The financial elixir that is falling home prices – Lower home prices good for the economy – Median U.S. home price down to $157,000 taking up 3 times the annual household income instead of the bubble peak of 5. Adding jobs while home prices move lower? Banks big winners when home prices remain inflated.
It is interesting that in the short-term horizon of our economy falling home prices are occurring while jobs are being added. The banking sector during the early days of the crisis made it abundantly clear that falling home prices would lead to economic collapse. Yet the opposite is occurring. Why? First, inflated home prices eat […]
Austerity nation – 45 million Americans on food assistance programs. Americans shopping at discount dollar stores confronting the realities of a shrinking dollar and disappearing middle class.
From November to December of 2010 487,000 Americans were added to the food stamp program. Keep in mind this all occurred while the stock market continued to soar and has rallied nearly 100 percent from the lows reached in March of 2009. Working and middle class Americans barely have enough to pay for the monthly […]
Home is where the working and middle class lose their money – $6.3 trillion lost in household real estate values. Top 1 percent control $13 trillion in financial assets while bottom 80 percent control $2 trillion.
When people talk about the American Dream it usually implies owning a home. Owning a home has been part of our collective psychology for generations and is hard to shake out even after such a disastrous and financially painful bubble that will linger with us for many years going forward. After World War II, owning […]
Financial dismantling of the American middle class in 8 charts – Peak debt, credit card addiction withdrawal, banks hoarding cash, financial sector dominance in pay, Federal debt will never be paid off, and struggles of the middle class.
The American economy runs on high octane debt. Debt has been welcomed by many with open arms and things seemed to be going well until people realized they actually had to pay the debt back. Average Americans trying to keep up with the picket white fence image of Leave it to Beaver were largely relying […]