Originally Posted By Labuda Hey, all - there's an article up on Yahoo right now with some very scary stats, such as: • 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007. • 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans. • 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings. • A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement. • 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year. • Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008. You can read the entire thing here: <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-heres-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=" target="_blank">http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-...tickers=</a>^DJI%2C^GSPC%2CSPY%2CMCD%2CWMT%2CXRT%2CDIA
Originally Posted By fkurucz The middle class has been gone for a while. The housing and credit bubbles did a good job of hiding that fact. Now Americans in general are so broke and so up to their eyeballs in debt that GM is going to start offering auto loans to subprime borrowers (expect other automakers to follow suit) as the grim reality that without these loans sales will not pick up. Of course this means that there will be a significant uptick in repos. >>Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.<< My advice to anyone is in over their head in debt is to see a BK lawyer ASAP. The deluge of bankruptcies is yet to begin, and I have little doubt that BK laws will be modified to give creditors the upper hand.
Originally Posted By pecos bill Pretty scary indeed, and fairly predictable. Common people have been getting abused by the wealthy ruling classes as long as civilization itself. America is just another empire that is doomed to failure because of the insatiable greed of our current ruling class, the one percenters. As long as the masses have enough to placate them, the game goes on, but when millions start to go hungry and homeless, watch out. When stupid, gullible Americans finally realize that the ultra wealthy do not earn their money, they steal it from them, watch out. No optimism here, just a deep sense of foreboding.
Originally Posted By fkurucz ^^^The thing about the one percenters is that they are never satisfied with their share of the pie. They keep taking and taking until one day they're facing a firing squad and they wonder "What happened?" To borrow a quote from the remake of Battlestar Galactica "This has happened before and it will happen again."
Originally Posted By DAR <<• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.>> I'll just say and I hope this doesn't come out wrong, I'm glad that I have been able to work at an employer that match's our contributions up to 6 percent.
Originally Posted By fkurucz ^^Fewer and fewer employers do that. Once upon a time they offered pensions, but took those away and replaced them with 401(k) plans, many of which had very long vesting periods for the matching funds. Then over time the matches became less generous and in some case disappeared altogether.
