Tag Archive: Middle Class


From Zero Hedge

 

1913 Just Happens To Be The Year Of The Fed’s Creation … Co-incidence ?

 

” The Fed claims it can generate a “recovery.” It cannot. The Fed’s devaluation of our currency is the very reason why the economy is a disaster.

According to the NY Times the average net worth for Middle class Americans in 2010 was 6% lower adjusted for inflation than their average net worth in 1989.

As the articles notes, housing costs 56% more than in 1989, our of pocket healthcare expenses rose 155%, college expenses are up in the double digits

The Fed is responsible for the Dollar devaluation that caused this. The Fed is the one that eviscerated the Middle Class. Its policies have lowered the quality of life for Americans. Period. End of story.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ObamaCare Taxes Will Increasingly Bite Middle Class

 

 

 

” When President Obama was selling his signature health care reform bill back in early 2010, he described it as the “largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history.” The costs would be largely paid by taxing insurance companies “that stand to gain a lot of money and a lot of profits” and by making “sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share on Medicare.”

The press at the time picked up this theme. The New York Times, for example, called ObamaCare “the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.”

But a closer examination finds that ObamaCare’s three biggest taxes — a Medicare surcharge, the so-called Cadillac tax and an insurance premium fee — will increasingly hit the middle class because of how the law indexes them for inflation and medical costs.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obama Claims Adding 11 Million Low-Skilled Workers Will Strengthen the Middle Class

 

 

 

” Could it be that when Obama was leafing through the thesaurus looking for synonyms for “Destroy”, “Smash”, “Utterly Eradicate” and “Eliminate Beyond Any Trace of Recognition”, he found himself with the antonyms rather than the synonyms?

Right now, we have 11 million undocumented immigrants in America; 11 million men and women from all over the world who live their lives in the shadows.  Yes, they broke the rules.  They crossed the border illegally.  Maybe they overstayed their visas.  Those are facts.  Nobody disputes them.  But these 11 million men and women are now here.  Many of them have been here for years.  And the overwhelming majority of these individuals aren’t looking for any trouble.  They’re contributing members of the community.  They’re looking out for their families.  They’re looking out for their neighbors.  They’re woven into the fabric of our lives.

Obama is confusing Mexican illegal aliens with Cotton Incorporated. They didn’t just break the rules. They broke the law.

They’re not contributing members. They take away jobs from Americans, leech off the social benefits system and commit a number of crimes besides the whole “illegal entry” deal. Jails tend to be full of illegal aliens for a reason.

 

Obama’s solution to employers hiring people under the table for low wages is to legalize 11 million illegal aliens. Which will open up positions for more illegals to come and work under the table, while the newly legal illegal aliens end up eventually going on unemployment once they get their green cards because there’s no work for them. And then we’ll legalize the new illegal aliens because etc… ”

 

 

Illustration By A F Branco

MIDDLE CLASS NET WORTH COLLAPSES TO 1969 LEVELS

 

 

 

 

 ” According to the study, we are now back to 1969 levels with respect to median net worth in this country. A large part of this is the housing crisis we’ve yet to recover from, which cost the middle class 18% of its net worth. The news isn’t much better with respect to median incomes, which have dropped to $26,364, setting us all the way back to 1999.

And as middle class incomes declined, the debt-load among the middle class has increased “significantly.”

In a nutshell: those of us in the middle class earn less, are worth less, and owe more. Meanwhile, during this same period of time, the wealthy increased their wealth by an unbelievable 71%.”

 

 

The sixties are back , feel the progress

 Update: Or Did They?

 

 

  ” Essential reading from Sean Trende about the new demographic reality at the polls. Based on his back-of-the-envelope math, there are actually two reasons why there were more minority voters as a share of the electorate this time. One, the reason everyone knows: There were more minority voters, period. Two, the reason no one guessed: If current projections hold, there were many, many fewer white voters at the polls this year than in 2008.

Had the same number of white voters cast ballots in 2012 as did in 2008, the 2012 electorate would have been about 74 percent white, 12 percent black, and 9 percent Latino (the same result occurs if you build in expectations for population growth among all these groups). In other words, the reason this electorate looked so different from the 2008 electorate is almost entirely attributable to white voters staying home. The other groups increased their vote, but by less than we would have expected simply from population growth.

Who were they? He looked at his home state of Ohio to try to guess:

Where things drop off are in the rural portions of Ohio, especially in the southeast. These represent areas still hard-hit by the recession. Unemployment is high there, and the area has seen almost no growth in recent years.”

 

 

“Survive”

A Memo to Joe Biden from the Middle Class

” I guess I qualify.  Though a two-story house in the suburbs has eluded me, I am by no means impoverished.  But therein lies my point — I do not know where I rank economically, at least not down to the dollar.  Furthermore, with a focus on long-range financial independence, it really doesn’t matter.

The most annoying aspects of Vice-President Biden’s debate performance were not his smirks, interruptions and condescending air but rather his numerous references to the middle class.  His chest-pounding blather about dedicating his life to leveling the playing field typifies what makes political discourse so lame and predictable.  Even conservatives take that all-too easy path, a.k.a. pandering, as if unaware that, constitutionally, government’s role is to ensure equal justice under the law for every American, not to promote the economic interests of one segment of society over another.

Middle-class Americans are, indeed, hurting, but not because the rich aren’t taxed enough, rather, the federal government is too big and spends way too much.  To truly feel the American pulse, maybe the vice-president would consider spending some time with those out there who actually punch a time clock for a living to subsidize his so-called noble intentions. ”

Graphic by The Looking Spoon

 

 

Ed Morrissey

 

  “Michael Kinsley once defined “gaffe” as the accidental telling of a political truth. That definition aptly describes the jaw-dropping admission from Joe Biden on the campaign trail this week. Thundering against Mitt Romney’s economic plan, which Biden erroneously claims will raise taxes on the middle class, the Vice President proclaimed his outrage. “How they can justify raising taxes on a middle class that has been buried the last four years?” Biden asked.

 

Perhaps Biden missed a memo or two, but for most of the last four years, his running mate, Barack Obama, has been President. For two of the last four years, his party controlled Congress by large majorities, as well as the two years that preceded those, and Biden’s party has controlled the Senator for all six years.  In fact, both Biden and Obama sat in the Senate previously, Obama for four and Biden for decades.  If the middle class has been buried, it’s been on their watch.”

 

JOE BIDEN ENDORSES ROMNEY-RYAN

  “Speaking today in Charlotte, Joe Biden finally acknowledged what we all know to be true: “The middle class has been buried for the last four years.”