Almost Half of US Households Exhaust Their Salaries

This situation sets up an easy segue to government controlled income. At first the government supplies the little bit extra to make ends meet.

Later in the future the government will assign all income and everything else.

The taking of money is more than greed, it also limits everything about life.

So, it's half now. The people who are not in the half are saying, I don't know why it's like that. All roller coasters go up and down. The greed gouges the middle man until there's another percentage added to the end result. This creates dependency and who will bite the hand that feed them. The economy can be gauged at your local grocery store. Remember when they told you bread was five dollars a loaf in the depression? It's getting there now. I bought a loaf for 3.79 yesterday. You can get a cheap loaf for 1.99. The cheap loaves don't last long in the pantry and you end up throwing some out. There's winners and losers. The game is fixed. You are enslaved by debt. The keen eyed people understood the game and are in a better position than the lower class.

In class warfare, the motto is borrow from Peter to pay Paul. People say to live within your means and it's your own fault for being where you are. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of being my brothers keeper when I am scrimping the same as everyone else. The percentage will rise. I will be wondering at what percent will the poor eat the rich. I'll stake my wager at 60% or when the loaf of bread costs five bucks. Whatever comes first.

a reply to: LOSTinAMERICA

$5 during the great depression was worth more than $5 today. The idea that it will one day take a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread is actually sounding like a reasonable assumption now-a-days.

Here is a study I did on the original value of the first U.S. minted coins compared to today.

"Historic value of U.S. copper and silver coins and present day metal values"
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Based on those figures I came to the following conclusion.

"If you use my average value a current U.S. dollar is equal to 7.41 cents in the 1790s. Also, the average inflation over the past 219 years have devalued the dollar by 6.15 cents per year."

When I figured that one out, I did the math a couple of times and a couple different ways and assured myself that it was correct. But after looking at it again, I wondered if that meant that in another year our money could be worth only 1.26 cents compared to the 1790s silver dollar coin and then possibly the following year be -4.98 cents? That would be like having to pay someone 5 cents just to take it for nothing in return - like its cursed and you want to get rid of it.

a reply to: Xtrozero

This has affected the rent market with exorbitant increase in rent since there are more people who want/need to rent then there is rentals.

When the mortgage bubble burst, this is exactly what I thought would happen. Also that we'd be seeing a lot of tent cities popping up every where. I have not heard about tent cities lately, but that is something the media wouldn't be reporting in the current bullish market they want us to believe is happening. Think I'll look into that part of it.

At first (1980s) under Reagonomics, wages had to be kept down. This was done by creating a large pool of unemployed (layoffs). Then new/re hires were hired back at less wages and reduced benefits. Then, to keep the pressure on to not raise wages, unions were decimated.

Also to assure that American workers' wages would be kept down, Americans were increasingly told that there were jobs "they wouldn't do"; Americans were too good for the traditional "blue collar" work and for "dirty work". It was better to work "cleanly" with your brains rather than with your hands.

Labor for Americans became associated with "professional", "white collar". Why, America was going to be the financial center of the world, offering plenty of jobs in the "financial industry" selling "financial products", after offshoring traditional jobs.

And who was to do the "blue collar work" (think construction, for example, although it began years ago in the meat packing industry) or "dirty work" (hotels, ex)? Corporations and businesses relied on a constant, increasing supply of illegal labor; they weren't suppose to hire them in the first place and went unpunished if they did.

It's going all according to plan. Pretty soon there will be no middle class. As it stands, there is no "American Dream" anymore. When my parents were 26, they had 2 children, were married and had a home. My father worked and my mom stayed home. Fast forward to today.. I am 37, divorced with one child. I don't own a home, and while I get a "decent" salary, I am still living paycheck to paycheck because everything is SO expensive, especially in NY. Did you know that our local power company PSE&G had the GAUL to raise our rates because they said "people didn't use enough electricity, so we didn't make as much money as we expected." !!!!

The Federal Reserve needs to be abolished. Please explain to me why the United States pays interest to a PRIVATE entity to print OUR money? It's AGAINST the constitution!! There is something coming. It's been slowly building for a long time now. But as this divide in wealth grows bigger and bigger, it's setting the chess pieces so to speak. Eventually the game will be on. Soon.

Here are some figures on U.S. tent cities. The Google search brings this study up mostly, it is almost two years old now and I'd say it was a really low ball figure even then.

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty documented media accounts of tent cities between 2008 and 2013, and estimated that there are more than 100 tent communities in the United States -- and it says the encampments are on the rise.

money.cnn.com...

I guess they don't last long before the cops and bulldozers level them though.

But Eric Tars, a NLCHP program director, wrote on the organization's blog that the total number of tent cities is likely much higher.

Tars also reports that out of the 100-plus tent cities confirmed in 46 states and the District of Columbia, only eight had "regularized legal status" -- which is why homeless encampments like the one in Camden are being swept away by local law enforcement.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

Building the world up to an equal playing field is going to hurt the people who lived in excess. I say this because you know how good it's been. The people who get propped up will think it's the best thing since sliced cheese. That's only a personal assessment.

Japan was bombed to the stone age in WW2. It wasn't just two atomic bombs but carpet bombings in most of their cities. Look what happened after. Are they better off now? China was backwards not too many years ago. Look what happened there. Are they better off now? I'm trying to make sense of it all and the wheels are turning ever onward. I would like to think there's a plan to all this bull# without demonizing the machine. I know it's probably a pipe dream.

a reply to: DerekJR321

our local power company PSE&G had the GAUL to raise our rates because they said "people didn't use enough electricity, so we didn't make as much money as we expected."

Now, even though green energy is supposed to be good all around for every one, the government wants to tax solar panels because they lose on the utility bill taxes. In Michigan they are considering taxing gasoline more because the price went down, of course when it goes up again, they won't reduce taxes on it. The vampires are trying to suck the blood out of a corpse. This greedy idea that the sky is the limit with growth is gouging the common man to death.

Families making under 30,000 a year are about to be screwed because of inflationary boundaries. Back 20 years ago a six figure income was the good life with big cars and big homes........No longer my family is lucky.....very lucky we both work hard and fall into what should be the good life category but because of inflation we can not have the life offered 20 years ago.


And ya I know we are lucky/hard working compared to many other households. Something is very wrong with this picture and it can not go on like this for many more years. What's next 20 year car loans and generational house loans.

a reply to: SubTruth

Wouldn't it be nice if a car was built to last twenty years! Anyone notice how they keep having constant recalls lately? Those clunkers they destroyed a while back were better than the cheaply constructed high priced vehicles of today. Glad I've been making bicycle repair my hobby lately.

Confucius say, a wise man prepares for all contingencies.

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
a reply to: SubTruth

Wouldn't it be nice if a car was built to last twenty years! Anyone notice how they keep having constant recalls lately? Those clunkers they destroyed a while back were better than the cheaply constructed high priced vehicles of today. Glad I've been making bicycle repair my hobby lately.

The average new 2015 car costs $30,000......20 years ago $15,000. What this tells me is the auto industry is going to crash in the next 5 years because people can not afford new car. They will not be able to sell 12 year car loans or enough leases. Used car lots will empty and the system will crash.


Inflation........Inflation.......Inflation is coming for us all......Best spooky voice. This is the real deal folks and it will touch everyone including the 1%.

In a bad economy like ours had been for the past 10 years or so it can be very difficult to get ahead once you fall behind if you work a wage based job or a salary based job. There's a real squeeze on anyone not in the highest tax bracket and anyone who started their careers in the past ten years are too young to know what it was like to live with some leg room. Even back then though there was a lot of acknowledgement of wages being too low and that back in the 1970s a man could support a wife and kids on his own paycheck. Even if you weren't there to know first hand that we don't make what we need anymore you can really tell anyways that "hey! this ain't nowhere near acceptable!"

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

The replies to this subject have been great. I've been starring every post.

Thanks to everyone who has chimed in.

Still, I have to say it once again, "Why did I have to see this report on the evening news before it made ATS?"

It used to be I'd get these important stories on ATS a few days before the MSM news on TV reported on them, if they appeared there at all that is. It also seems that the stories I consider important end up getting way less attention than others on ATS that seem less substantial. Perhaps people are putting their heads back into the sand or just don't have the time to get important news out as quickly as they used to.

a reply to: TKDRL

I am not bragging or gloating. I do find it hard to believe that people are having issues, if someone like me can do what I am currently doing.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Uhhh, the have-nots already outnumber the haves. The Govt seems to have made this a point to happen.

Now, I do offer a more medium based item, but it does not sell as well as the high end models.

The great thing, is that what I make isn't solely restricted to a "luxury" item. Our products have cross demand, which is why we are successful.


Again, I am not gloating. I have been there with the paycheck to paycheck job. I worked through it, actually planned and lived life to a budget.

If more people were to follow the teachings of people like Dave Ramsey, they wouldn't be in this position.

originally posted by: macman
If more people were to follow the teachings of people like Dave Ramsey, they wouldn't be in this position.

I have nothing against Dave Ramsey, I listen to him occasionally even. His suggestions are quite simply unrealistic for the bottom 1/3 or so of income earners in the country. $1000 in emergency savings? 6 months of living expenses (that's say $15,000 on average), 15% of your income into investments that won't pay off for 20+ years?

None of those things are possible for low income earners who are most likely go get caught in debt. The typical guideline for buying a house is something between 100% and 200% of your annual salary, and that's a 30 year loan. Lets take the bottom 10%, just in steps 1 and 2 he wants $16,000 in savings which is around 150% of low earner income, and he expects you to do that within a year. Go show me how many people who aren't extraordinarily wealthy can go out and make a purchase on the scale of an appropriate new home and pay it off fully within a year.

His plan doesn't work for the poor, only the rich.

originally posted by: TKDRL
Most people I know are just barely treading water, one medical or legal problem away from total disaster really. Living check to check with nothing left over after the basic bills are paid.

The puppet masters feel fear of personal financial disaster is a good motivator
of their herd management methods as outlined in Orwell's animal farm.

They want all the sheeple to be boxer the horse from that story, while they are
the pigs living high on the hog so to speak, and surround themselves with thugs
to protect them much like the current thugocracy with some of the worst police
who will even kill the unarmed citizens just out of a need to dominate.

originally posted by: macman
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Uhhh, the have-nots already outnumber the haves. The Govt seems to have made this a point to happen.

Now, I do offer a more medium based item, but it does not sell as well as the high end models.

The great thing, is that what I make isn't solely restricted to a "luxury" item. Our products have cross demand, which is why we are successful.


Again, I am not gloating. I have been there with the paycheck to paycheck job. I worked through it, actually planned and lived life to a budget.

If more people were to follow the teachings of people like Dave Ramsey, they wouldn't be in this position.

It sounds like a good niche market. It's OK to plan your life and be successful.

IMO, you have to be devoted to your personal vision and see it through. Many times there are plans that are too far reaching or are simply a failed enterprise, but you really do learn from mistakes and if they are big enough, you never forget them.

March on with forward resolve, be realistic about the possibilities and potential opportunities. Anyone could hit on a lucrative deal but it all comes down to having enough money to win the lottery of life. You have to have the cash to cover the numbers spread and of course the house is usually the winner.

The current model isn't working and is headed for failure. This has been a lesson that our government and people have forgotten.

Here is a good lesson the United States should have learned a long time ago, in cartoon form a kid would understand.

Mississippi Bubble Cartoon