There is a chilling report out from the Federal Reserve that the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That returns American families to the wealth level of 1992.
The biggest hit were the middle class families. The wealthiest families actually saw a slight rise. The median for credit card debt did not materially change, however. Much of this decline is due to the decline in home values which remains the biggest investment for most families. Forty-seven percent of citizens do not pay taxes income taxes and 87 percent of those earn less than $20,000 a year.
These figures are remarkable since they parallel the Great Depression but we have not seen the same degree of displacement or social or political upheaval as a result. There are different theories from better public welfare programs to a new political dynamic with many lower and middle class families supporting either the Tea Party or GOP. It may also be that many families have experienced the decline but continue to hold on to their homes so that the diminishing in wealth does not manifest as sharply in their lives. Whatever the cause, the reduction in wealth has not produced a comparative political backlash that I can see.
Source: Washington Post
Shano,
Sounds like NAFTA and GATT for another geographic region.
Woosty, thanks for the video. I’ve long had the question of why is growth good? Why is it necessary? From a business standpoint it’s seems pretty standard that the business has to grow or it will die (not that it’s always a bad idea). I’ve known intuitively that constant growth is unsustainable but found it hard to explain factually or mathematically to those who firmly believe that growth is necessary and good. The professor has laid it out nicely. I’ll have to watch the video again. Maybe that’s what the Mayans figured out.
A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise by President Obama. A U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact between the United States and eight Pacific nations would allow foreign corporations operating in the U.S. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal.
The body would have the power to override U.S. law and issue penalties for failure to comply with its ruling. We speak to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a fair trade group that posted the leaked documents on its website. “This isn’t just a bad trade agreement,” Wallach says. “This is a ‘one-percenter’ power tool that could rip up our basic needs and rights.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc
.
Malisha,
“Israel is a device used by Arab states seeking regime change.” That is, of course, too complex for me, but it does seem like another rework of the same-old.
==========
That is a rework of the same-old. Why did they kill Sadat? Same-old. He knew he was going to die. What is happening in Syria now?
How about Muammar Qaddafi? Let the French deal with it now. Or don’t they have the balls to send in anyone except the Foreign Legion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi
Matt Johnaon,
Good session by all.
Don’t know if this will be read, but just to give you a reply:
If the Mayans did not figure our anything, then why is Obama in such a big rush to get so much bad stuff done.
Due date, maybe????
ID707,
Once they lose about 3% they leave. Keep kicking.
idealist ‘Most primitive people, including the above ones, know when to stop hostilities when their own losses get too high.
So it is a self-limiting conflict.
Our government has no religion but profit and it knows no limits’
This is the problem that escalates when the war profiteers are allowed to buy our representatives. Vicious cycles are vicious. So true.
ok, My Xoloitzcuintle is telling me the Aztecs discovered ‘zero’ first.
No, the Martians did. Bu they went extinct before telling us. My spacecraft there tells me that.
Malisha,
Let’s compare the arab use of Israel to “our” use of the war on terror.
Regime change, haven’t seen any since Nasser and Qadaffi got and lost power.
If Nasser died of a heart attack (and not a CIA attack) then my name is King Farouk. And who picked the guy who did an Oswald on Rabin? Guess. Was it Mossad or the firm?
Speculation thy game is brain driven.
Redacted text for children:
Geez, the malarkey you can crank out, both of you. Any certified?
India invented math, including the empty set.
It was according to Junction Shamus that American boys THOUGHT that Sweden invented porno.
The Swedes have only invented “do it when you like it, and we know everybody likes it here” S-X.
That and the monkey wrench—yes in fact.
Sunnis vs Shiites? They do that with the right hand.
The left hand reserved for wiping your POSTERIOR EFFLUVIUM is for the foreigners—at the same time.
And who’s that DDDDDDDD?????
Stupid censor system here. Hear that system!
If I knew that it would hold me in fo moderation I could have revised it to pass Big Brother.
Kind of like what the Sunnis and Shiites do to each other when there aren’t any foreigners to kill. How about the Catholics and Protestants.
=====================================================
Some Israelis point out that the Arab countries feel very unified when they oppose Israel, but not otherwise, so the cohesion of the Arabs = the Jews. An Egyptian scholar, whose own father was killed in a war with Israel, commented that “Israel is a device used by Arab states seeking regime change.” That is, of course, too complex for me, but it does seem like another rework of the same-old.
ID707,
I mentioned earlier, in answer to a discussion on young american men’s thoughts that some felt that Sweden had invented porno
==============================================
Al Gore invented the internet. Since when did Sweden invent porno? David Duchovny got busted for looking at too much porn. Is that Sweden’s fault? Shame on you for making Duchovny look bad.
According to Mesopotamia, they invented math. So who’s ahead?
idealist707 1, June 14, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Dredd,
Somewhere above is buried along with your furor is my snotty snarty reply to you.
You gave me the pleasure of reviving in full (?) force the weapons of my childhood. Thanks for the enjoyment. No harm done. We are at times here for the purpose of exchanging a little bile. No harm done.
The ones we’d like to kill are outside our reach, so we have to fight each other as surrogates instead.
=======================
Kind of like what the Sunnis and Shiites do to each other when there aren’t any foreigners to kill. How about the Catholics and Protestants.
Matt,
New thought on sunni/shiite and catholic/protestant.
Most primitive people, including the above ones, know when to stop hostilities when their own losses get too high.
So it is a self-limiting conflict.
Our government has no religion but profit and it knows no limits.
I said that.
To ALL,
Wishing to leave my mark in the historical record embedded in 10 rsised to 30th bytes of data, I add here a crosspost which has value in being registered by your minds.
The figure? The number of protons in the universe.
Quote:
I mentioned earlier, in answer to a discussion on young american men’s thoughts that some felt that Sweden had invented porno, that the first erotic art exhibition was in 1968 at Lund’s Könsthall, and arranged by the American couple Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen. An exhibition which I had seen then.
Further, let me add this excerpt from the self-bio from their blog with a connection to the breakthrough of erotic material in the USA. Reading further in the bio is recommended. Note their promo of new book: “Staying Sane in a Crazy World”, a work which may have some value to the readers. (Haven’t read it, and can not say if this is by use of erotic material, psychotherapy with buddhistic base or other sources.)
EXCERPT
“Another large breakthrough against censorship and for the recognition of fine erotic art, were our first exhibitions of erotic fine art in several, large public, Scandinavian museums, from ca. 1968-1970, and in a private Museum
of Erotic Art, in San Francisco, from 1971 to 1973.
We also arranged for the importation by Grove Press of the first frankly erotic Swedish film of indisputable artistic merit, “I am Curious Yellow.”
This, in turn, prepared the way—for better or for worse, depending on one’s point of view—for the public showing of other, frankly erotic, as well as outright pornographic films (as, e.g., “Deep Throat” and “The Devil in Miss Jones,” to mention just two of the best known
of these frankly pornographic movies).
END EXCERPT.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eberhard-kronhausen-and-phyllis-kronhausen
Considering how this modest start has developed in extending the permitted limits of our minds, our rights to use them as we wish, and the obvious impact on our society (watch any talk show on TV, etc.) then I felt that providing this link to this group of civil rights defenders and simply citizens of this America, was worth doing.
For those who can, remember your youth and those bygone days.
For some, don’t read this comment. Adult material. Pun intended.
Dredd,
Somewhere above is buried along with your furor is my snotty snarty reply to you.
You gave me the pleasure of reviving in full (?) force the weapons of my childhood. Thanks for the enjoyment. No harm done. We are at times here for the purpose of exchanging a little bile. No harm done.
The ones we’d like to kill are outside our reach, so we have to fight each other as surrogates instead.
It was drafted to stop the opulent from getting that way indecently. ”
Dredd
Then it is not working at all. We see all sorts of indecent opulence, from Monsanto to Blackwater…….
Sorry if I offended you Idealist707, or Indigo Jones.
“The constitution was drafted to help the opulent.”
That is a laugh.
It was drafted to stop the opulent from getting that way indecently. I someone develops an opulent lifestyle decently, so be it.
It is not the constitution that turned the U.S. into a plutocracy, rather it is the ignoring and trampling on the constitution which does that.
Perceived defects in the constitution were taken on following the Bill of Rights in the original.
These included States Rights (11th), Election Fine Tuning (12th), outlawing Slavery (13th), and application of equal citizen rights and due process to states, etc. (14th).
Can’t we all just get along? That was Rodney King in LA. He got arrested again.