64% can't cover $1,000 emergency

[Alias]

Right wing turdorrists. At least Muslim terrorists are honest in their hatred toward Americans.

There you have it folks. He hates his fellow Americans more than muslim terrorists. We all suspected it, and now you have it on record. The far left hates their fellow Americans more than our enemy.

 

[Alias]

Actually, I do. Unlike lots of folks here, it's not all partisan w/ me. I don't like the idea of a group of rich people basically deciding our elections, regardless of side.

No one ever paid me to vote and I'm 63 years old. Has anyone paid you to vote?

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

The increases from the 60s to the 80s are the miniscule compared to the increases from the 80s and beyond, but whatever. The real problem is the decline in the savings rate from 1980 onward coupled with the explosion in debt.

True. It does escalate as the boomers got older. The point I originally made was where and why it began. I also agree that the declining savings rate was an issue.

I'm asking you what you think middle class is here and elsewhere. I'm not picking a range.

By definition it would be the middle two quartiles.

[/quote]

 

[Onceler]

No one ever paid me to vote and I'm 63 years old. Has anyone paid you to vote?

It's what happens before you vote. If you don't think elections = money, I'm not sure we have much to talk about.

 

[The Dude]

Obama outspend the fuck out of republicans and amazingly he got more from Wall street.

 

[Onceler]

Obama outspend the fuck out of republicans and amazingly he got more from Wall street.

And again, that's not a good thing. The amount spent in the last Prez campaign should be an eye opener for everyone. It's not how the process should be; it excludes a lot of qualified people...

 

[cawacko]

amazing bfged can shed the socialist bent to chear the most capitalist team.

Right?!?! We will win because we spend more money than anyone else and create an unfair playing field so that no small market teams can compete with us.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

And again, that's not a good thing. The amount spent in the last Prez campaign should be an eye opener for everyone. It's not how the process should be; it excludes a lot of qualified people...

ignore the partisans.... take a look at my previous comment to you and let me know what you would add/subtract

 

[Mott the Hoople]

The answer is really somewhere in the middle. No doubt, GL has a point about credit debt. Everyone wants to keep up w/ their neighbors & have the best stuff, so most live beyond their means.

But, means is an issue as well. The gap between rich & poor keeps growing, relentlessly. Wages for lower & middle income earners are in a perpetual state of stagnation. There is little doubt that we are indeed becoming a nation of haves & have nots.

and as I pointed out. Productivity over that time has nearly doubled of which the middle, working and professional classes who have produced most of this increased wealth have seen virtually none of it in return for their efforts. It has almost entirely gone to the top 1%. It's time to start fighting for our fair share of the pie.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I've always said that people who complain about how our poor live should visit some other nations and see how their poor live. I have a good friend who maintains the cable system for some housing projects in Birmingham. These are the poor in a relatively poor city, but the majority have cabletv and many have some pay channels. Go to any nation south of us and check where the poor live.

Dude...I hear what your saying.....but using Somalia to set the bar aint exactly setting it very high.

 

[Bfgrn]

Right?!?! We will win because we spend more money than anyone else and create an unfair playing field so that no small market teams can compete with us.

Who won the World Series last year? How about the last decade?

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks
2002 Anaheim Angels
2003 Florida Marlins
2004 Boston Red Sox
2005 Chicago White Sox
2006 St. Louis Cardinals
2007 Boston Red Sox
2008 Philadelphia Phillies
2009 New York Yankees
2010 San Francisco Giants

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I think it really starting picking up steam post-WWII and wasn't really an issue prior to that because the bulk of the population had little money and little available credit. If has increased since the 1980s with substantial increases in household debt and decreases in personal savings.



Depends on how you define "middle class" and "worse off."



Relative to other developed countries I don't know what our poor are all that well off. Americans have larger homes than Europeans and the Japanese in general because we have lots more land and more rural populations. Consumer electronics are a pretty bad measure of how well off a person is. Used consumer electronics are dirt cheap. This is just a bad argument.

His argument on the middle class just doesn't hold water. When adjusted for inflation median household incomes have not risen significantly since the 70's. When you also consider that most households in the 70's had a single earner and now most house holds require two earners, then the reality is that middle class earnings per capita have dropped by about a third over the last 40 years. When you also consider the enormous growth in GDP and productivity over that time and that the over whelming majority of that wealth has gone to the top 1% and virtually none of it to the rest of our society.....well then you can tell that the Freak is brain damaged from drinking to much tea and kool-aid! LOL

 

[The Dude]

Yankees have won over 24% of the total of world series bfged. Is that math too hard for you. Kudo's for ditching the social justice bs for something more important like sports. fucking hack

 

[cawacko]

Who won the World Series last year? How about the last decade?

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks
2002 Anaheim Angels
2003 Florida Marlins
2004 Boston Red Sox
2005 Chicago White Sox
2006 St. Louis Cardinals
2007 Boston Red Sox
2008 Philadelphia Phillies
2009 New York Yankees
2010 San Francisco Giants

Evil Empire!

I do owe the Yankees some gratitude for giving Jason Giambi the large contract they did back in the early 2000's. Had the A's resigned him it would have sunk our franchise (this was of course before the fuckhead Lew Wolfe bought the team but I digress).

 

[cawacko]

His argument on the middle class just doesn't hold water. When adjusted for inflation median household incomes have not risen significantly since the 70's. When you also consider that most households in the 70's had a single earner and now most house holds require two earners, then the reality is that middle class earnings per capita have dropped by about a third over the last 40 years. When you also consider the enormous growth in GDP and productivity over that time and that the over whelming majority of that wealth has gone to the top 1% and virtually none of it to the rest of our society.....well then you can tell that the Freak is brain damaged from drinking to much tea and kool-aid! LOL

How do you propose to change that. Economically we live in an entire different world now. China and India were not the factors back in the '50's and '60's that they are today. Capital freely moves across borders now. To my knowledge there is no real way to prevent the global competition American workers face.

 

[The Dude]

mott should study the main causes of inflation, salaries are one. Of course they didn't outstrip inflation. limosine liberals

 

[Onceler]

As long as we level the playing field... yes... I want those like Oprah, Gates, Dell, Walton etc... to enjoy the success they brought themselves. That said, fuck Zuckerberg, that guy is a douche bag... take everything he has.

Ways to level the playing field:

1) ALL sources of income taxed at the same rate.... the bulk of the wealthy get their income predominantly from dividend income and long term capital gains... these sources should be taxed at the same rate as ST gains and earned income. All muni income becomes taxable and the cities/states can simply pay the same rate as other taxable entities. If they want to offer State income tax exemption... fine... that is up to the states, but no way should it be federal exempt.

2) All loopholes/deductions/subsidies eliminated... they predominantly favor the wealthy

3) Corporate income tax eliminated.... it is a highly regressive hidden tax on consumers

I like those measures, but they don't level the playing field. Mott's point about productivity is a good one - it has increased incredibly, but with little benefit to those outside of the top 10% or so.

A good way to start leveling the playing field is through education. Obviously, K-12 needs improving, but the cost of higher eduction is now completely out of hand. The average middle class family should be able to send their kids to wherever they meet the admissions criteria, without having to accumulate 6-figure debt in the process.

 

[Phantasmal]

How do you propose to change that. Economically we live in an entire different world now. China and India were not the factors back in the '50's and '60's that they are today. Capital freely moves across borders now. To my knowledge there is no real way to prevent the global competition American workers face.

Oh. there are ways, but you Capitalist would be screaming!

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/52/5/37223552.pdf

As I stated, If my assumption was incorrect... I apologized....

That said, here is the problem with table 3

Notes. The symbol ”—“ indicates that no suitable survey question has been identified. Further information about national surveys
used is provided in Annex

1. For European countries, data in italics are based on ESQL rather than ECHP. Data for New Zealand and
United States refer to shares of individuals (rather than households) living in households reporting different types of deprivation. Data
from ECHP and the US "Survey on Income and Program Participation" (SIPP) are weighted with normalized cross-sectional
households’ weights. Data for New Zealand are from Jensen et al. (2002); they are weighted to take into account the probability of
selection, of non-response and sample stratification. Data for Japan from the "Survey on Living conditions" are not weighted.[/quote]

There is no standard. Thus, there to try and compare them is not necessarily accurate.

1. Data refer to respondents that occasionally could not heat their home because of lack of money in Australia; that could not afford to
heat their home in European countries; that are not satisfied with the warmth of their house in winter in the United States; to the
average of the shares responding affirmatively to four questions ("household members often feel cold to save heating costs";
"household members often stayed in bed longer to save heating costs"; "household could not afford heating in all main rooms";
"household cannot afford warm bedding in the winter") in New Zealand; that could not afford heating and cooling devices in Japan.

Do you see the problem in the above? For Australia and Europe it is 'can't afford to heat my home'.... in the US it is 'not satisfied with how warm my house is'....

2. Data refer to people declaring that they could not afford to eat meat or chicken every second day if they wished so in Europe; that
they did not eat the quality or variety of food that they wanted because of a lack of money in Canada; that they were not able to have
at least one special meal once a weak in Australia; to the average of the shares responding affirmatively to three questions ("the
household could not afford a special meal at home at least once a week"; "the household bought cheaper cuts of meat or eat less
meat than would like to keep costs down"; "the household went without fresh fruit and vegetables to help keep costs down") in New
Zealand; and to the average of those who "had enough but not always the kind of the food they want to eat" and "who could not afford
balanced meals" in the United States.

1) The US criteria in now way can be compared to Europe. Had enough food, but 'it wasn't what they WANTED'? THAT somehow shows that level of people not eating enough/starving/etc???

2) Those who said they can't afford a balanced meal simply need to be shown what to buy. Education on the topic is likely the back drop to this... OR it goes back to the 'its not what I WANT to eat'

3. Data refer to individuals who "occasionally ran out of money to pay for food" in European countries; to the average of shares
responding affirmatively to four questions ("sometimes or often the food did not last"; "household has cut the size of the meals or skip
meals because of shortage of money"; "household has eaten less because of shortage of money"; "household has not eaten for a
whole day because of a shortage of money") in the United States; to persons declaring that "they did not have enough food to eat
because of a lack of money" in Canada; to persons who "went without meals because of a shortage of money" in Australia.

Here, for the US... the first three are completely subjective. Why did the food not last? Is it because you didn't have enough money or because you ate more than you needed to earlier in the week? Cutting the size? From WHAT to WHAT? Does this mean you just didn't super size your McD's? Eaten less? THAN WHAT? The last one is where our concern should lie....

4. Data refer to respondents that "bought second-hand clothes because they could not afford to buy new ones" in European countries
and Australia; to the average share of respondents declaring that "family bought second hand clothes instead of new to help keep
costs down" and that they "continue to wear worn-out clothing because of lack of money" in New Zealand; and to the average of
respondents indicating that that could not afford buying new underwear once per year and clothes for special occasions in Japan.

Obviously we either didn't have a problem or we felt the problem was so minimal it wasn't worth addressing?

5. Data refer to respondents declaring that "on the last occasion they needed to see a doctor or a medical specialist, the cost of it
made it difficult to do so" for European countries; to the average of shares of respondents declaring that "they occasionally could not
see a doctor despite needing one because of lack of money" and that "they could not see a dentist despite needing one because of
lack of money" in the United States; to the average share of respondents declaring that "they postponed/put off visits to doctor"; "they
postponed/put off visits to the dentists"; "they did not pick up prescription"; "they went without glasses" in New Zealand; and to those
who could not afford visiting a doctor when needed in Japan.

While these are closer... they are still very different questions. If I limit the Europeans to their LAST visit vs. the US being 'I occasionally can't afford it'.... BIG difference.

6. Weights vary inversely to the square root of the share of the population lacking a given item (i.e. forms of deprivation which affect
only a small share of the population are given a larger weight than those that are more common). Weights are scaled to sum to 1
across items. Weights for new European countries, Luxembourg and Sweden use data from ESQL rather than ECHP.

7. Average of the countries listed above, weighted by the number of households in each country.

Ok, I admit... they lost me in the above.... WHAT?

 

[The Dude]

bullshit, productivty icreases puts more goods in the average douche bag's house.

Ie check the average home contents back to the crybaby rant about salaries not going up vs inflation (hillarious by the way).