The Reality of 2014

[Copper Catcher]

…….A report out Thursday from the Corporation for Enterprise Development, nearly half of Americans are living in a state of “persistent economic insecurity,” that makes it “difficult to look beyond immediate needs and plan for a more secure future.” In other words, too many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. The CFED calls these folks “liquid asset poor,” and its report finds that 44% of Americans are living with less than $5,887 in savings for a family of four. The plight of these folks is compounded by the fact that the recession ravaged many Americans’ credit scores to the point that now 56% percent of us have subprime credit. That means that if emergencies arise, many Americans are forced to resort to high-interest debt from credit cards or payday loans.
Read more: Nearly Half of America Lives Paycheck-to-Paycheck | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2014/01/30/nea ... z2s0YBXmAV


With that information as a backdrop check out this video of folks finding out how the Affordable Care Act is effecting them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuA2_P-m4Sk

More news....

Americans Burned Through $46 Billion In Savings To Fund December Purchases: Savings Rate Lowest Since January 2013

If there was any confusion where the funding for what little shopping spree Americans engaged in during December, it should all go away now. While the street was expecting a 0.2% increase in both personal income and personal spending in the month of December, what it got instead was a flat print in income (i.e. unchanged from November) while spending (mostly for non-durable goods) spiked by 0.4% meaning there was a 0.4% funding hold that had to be filled somehow. That somehow we now know is personal savings, which tumbled from a revised 4.3% to 3.9% - the lowest since January 2013, only back then incomes would rise for the rest of the year driven by the 30% increase in the S&P "wealth effect." This time, with the Fed now tapering QE, the only way is down for both the "wealth effect" and Personal Incomes... and thus Personal spending, that majority component of US GDP. Finally, this data means that according to the BEA in December US consumers funded some $46 billion in spending through burning down their savings.

http://www.zerohedge.com/?page=1

Real Disposable Income Plummets Most In 40 Years

,,,real disposable personal income drops by 0.2% from a month earlier, and plummets by 2.7% from a year ago, the biggest collapse since the semi-depression in 1974, something is wrong with the US consumer. http://www.zerohedge.com/?page=1

[68Camaro]

So the entire country splurged and ransacked their savings and credit in December and managed to rack up $46 billion in that little spree, vs $75 billion in monthly QE (the reduced QE). Another way of putting the QE amount into perspire.

[johnbrickner]

…….A report out Thursday from the Corporation for Enterprise Development, nearly half of Americans are living in a state of “persistent economic insecurity,” that makes it “difficult to look beyond immediate needs and plan for a more secure future.”

My observation is "The majority of people I come into contact with are living lives of quiet desperation". They just don't talk about it and that's been my reality since 2008.

[Copper Catcher]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0HX4a5P8eE
Remember this commercial!!

[currencydebasement]

Has it ever been any other way? I'd say most families with a mortgage are 6 months of unemployment or less away from losing their home (I'm excluding the sometimes lengthy period of time it takes for the bank to legally foreclose). My father worked in the service industry and he was the family breadwinner. If he went on disability or unemployment we certainly would have lost our home, but he didn't and we got by comfortably. He's worked in the same restaurant for 47 years.

Although I was alive, I don't recall the 70's but from what I read that was a time of economic malaise, stagflation no less. I'd say the average person was wondering what they had to do to get ahead in this world, much as we do today. The context of the recent boom impacts our perception about what is the economic norm. That norm is that most of us are an illness or job loss away from being broke, not just the "working" class but professionals too.

[Copper Catcher]

In the US we are so far removed we forget the number of people in the world that live on less than $1.25 a day! But who wants to do that. Most people in America don't consider that a life.


In general, there are three degrees of poverty: absolute (extreme), moderate, and relative. Absolute poverty is known as "the poverty that kills," where these people get by with $1 a day, or less. There are approximately 1.1 billion people out of 6 billion in the world who live in absolute poverty according to the World Bank. In the United States, approximately 32 million people live in poverty, about 30% of the world number.

In 2001, 25 million people of the Middle East lived with less that one dollar a day. Together, Eastern Europe and Central Asia had about 50 million people living in this condition in 2001. East Asia had a more staggering number of 300 million people living in extreme poverty and South Asia tops it with 425 million. Latin America and the Caribbean had a total of 100 million people in poverty while Sub-Saharan Africa had 325 million of its people in poverty.

[Mossy]

The fedgov policies encourage "velocity of money" in the economy. This strips people of assets and savings, and so forces more and more people to live paycheck to paycheck, and will throw them into wellfare if they have any problems.