The Middle Class Two Income Trap – Two Breadwinners plus Extra Money to support the Banking Industry. How Middle Class Americans are losing Ground by Supporting the Financial Sector.
If it isn’t enough that average Americans are contending with the rising cost of healthcare, education, and daily necessities like food now additional funds are going directly to the banking sector to keep them propped up like a money loving puppet. Since the Great Depression the rise of the middle class has been the envy of many people around the globe. The ability for hard working Americans to have access to an economy that supported them so long as they worked hard and followed an implicit guarantee with their nation. With this implicit guarantee it was assumed that the government would also protect people to a certain degree especially when it came to their financial well being. This did not assure a winning portfolio but it did mean we wouldn’t turn our stock market into a giant game of casino where the connected had a loaded deck. Much of the strong regulatory arm that came from the Great Depression was because of the speculative gambling during the Roaring 1920s. Yet as time went on slowly Wall Street took these structures away and now we are finding ourselves once again with the middle class largely at risk in the United States. It isn’t by accident we are in the situation we are in today.
The Only Certain Bet in this Market is paying Down Debt. Credit Card Rates Rise as Other Interest Rates Drop. $866 Billion in Revolving Debt Still Remains.
The global economy remains on unstable footing as we see debt problems slam the European markets with Greece in the current spotlight. Yet the problem of debt is not unique to Greece itself and it is fascinating that the world is only focusing on one country. The average American over the past four decades has taken on so much debt that household debt outstanding is now equivalent to the U.S. annual GDP. The biggest amount of debt is with mortgage debt. Yet with mortgage debt you are securing the mortgage to ideally a property that will reflect the amount of debt linked to the home. Part of the housing bubble problem stems from the hyper inflated values of homes and now we are seeing the ramifications of this with millions of homes being foreclosed on. But another large part of this bubble was around the usage of credit cards that hit their apex during this crisis:
Commercial Real Estate Collapse Bigger than Subprime Implosion – Why is the Market Ignoring the $3.5 Trillion Commercial Real Estate Market Implosion? Pricing in Another Bailout.
Most people that follow real estate even at a cursory level have heard of the problems in commercial real estate. The enormous $3.5 trillion market in commercial real estate (CRE) has deep and profound problems. At the peak CRE was estimated to be valued at $6.5 trillion. Today the value is closer to $3.5 trillion or closer to the loan amount outstanding. This market is now sitting in a zero equity position. In fact from market trends it is very likely that much of CRE bought during the last few years is significantly underwater. This trend is a few years behind the residential housing bust that shocked the markets into record declines. Why is the market not reacting as negatively to the bust in CRE as it did to residential housing?
FDIC and Federal Reserve Protector of the Big Banks – Four Institutions with Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citibank make up 55 Percent of all FDIC Backed Assets. Big Banks Pillaging the Middle Class.
The FDIC provides deposit insurance at 8,099 institutions. Collectively the FDIC overlooks $13.247 trillion in assets at these institutions. Instead of feeling protected you should feel weary because the FDIC deposit insurance fund is insolvent. Now the assets at these institutions range from softer side financial instruments like CDs and regular deposits but keep in mind that saving accounts are actually viewed as liabilities on the balance sheet of banks. This is money owed to you, the typical American saver. What is more nefarious is that these banks label high flying “assets†like commercial real estate loans and home equity lines as assets. In other words banks are optimistically pretending that many of their toxic assets are worth more than they claim they are really worth. And what is even more disturbing is the too big to fail banks make up the bulk of the FDIC total asset pool. Out of 8,099 institutions 4 banks in Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citibank make up 55 percent of that total asset pool: Read More