The Federal Reserve plans on exporting the U.S. middle class abroad with Quantitative Easing II. QE1 cost $1.7 trillion and took the underemployment rate from 10 percent to 17 percent.
The Federal Reserve is entering uncharted territory with this second phase of quantitative easing. The public may or may not be aware that the Fed has already embarked on quantitative easing (QE1) and has grown their balance sheet by $1.7 trillion (that’s $1,700,000,000,000) by exchanging U.S. Treasuries for questionable assets including a shopping mall in […]
What does it take to be middle class in America today? Living on $50,000 per year in America.
Is it possible to live a middle class lifestyle in America with a household income of $50,000? The recent Census survey puts the median household income at $50,000 for American households. So technically speaking, this is the middle class. Yet what we think of a middle class lifestyle including affordable public colleges, accessible healthcare, and […]
How we lost 1.3 million households from 2008 to 2009. New Census figures show a large decrease in U.S. household count.
Preliminary Census data is now coming out showing the effects of the recession on a macro scale. The 2008 Census figures don’t highlight the deep capital loss that was experienced by middle class families over the last two years. We now have data showing how deep the recession has gotten. From 2008 to 2009 the […]
As more Americans save the typical too big to fail banking savings account is paying close to 0 percent in interest. At the same time the average credit card interest rate is over 14 percent.
The one silver lining of this crisis if there is one to be had is that many more Americans are actually saving more money. However the problem that many now face is historically low interest rates through bank savings accounts. Average Americans have few places to go receive a decent return (5% or lower) without […]