US middle class and working poor are no longer standing at the edge of the financial cliff...

... they are holding on with their fingers now!

This is all about the middle class and working class being able to make payments on their credit cards and mortgages, and still have enough left to buy consumer items.

Reset mortgages, and dropping home equity, are reducing consumers ability to pay as agreed with each passing month. The credit card companies are fearful that payments will be missed to them so they are raising rates and fees across the board to get what they can get now.

Consumer purchasing is dropping as prices continue to climb.

Jobs continue to be outsourced.

And there is no prospect of relief for the middle class and working class until we get a new President sworn in on Jan 2009.

the current crop of options on either side, with the minor exception of Dennis Kucinich.

All the candidates don't care a flop about the middle class. Just check their voting records.

Forget about the flat screen TV or the new washer.

People are starting to worry about what they're going to eat.

sure, you don't have to pay income taxes. But the working poor don't anyway. They get that portion back, if they're lucky. But they still pay FICA and payroll taxes, all that will probably remain.

And on top of that, these rethugs now want Americans to pay 30% more for items they purchase!

Republican on asserting that the middle class was disappearing because too many were becoming part of the affluent class (affluent class, new designation?)

The Middle Class is disappearing in a mountain of debt, not affluency.

I was much better off under the Clinton Administration.

Well, if he wants to share his wealth, then maybe we'd be back UP to middle class. But affluent, no way.

effluent class? Cause it sure feels like we're being flushed down the tube.

a reasonable solution to the problem. Not that I have one myself, but the constant recitation of how we are so doomed is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, equity has vanished from millions of homes, along with the credit lines, and millions will soon be homeless. And the millions of foreclosed homes will be vacant. Hmmm... Economics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

We've got a phony liquidity crunch because too many people got on the mortgage bandwagon. Hmmm... haven't we been down this road before? Don't "investors" jump all over something stupid on a regular basis? Like dotcom retailers with no earnings, or even sales?

Anyway, bleating about the coming economic disaster doesn't seem to include ways to stop it or ways to avoid being caught in it, so we'll all just wait to see what happens.

Very likely nothing besides a few adjustments, like US residents having to pay more for less stuff. Or, complete chaos and we're all on our own finding hidden cans of food.

Either way, not much for most of us to do about it now.

get with the program!
The point of saying the sky is falling isn't to do anything about it, it's more to feel important I suspect.
sheesh

We started down this road in the 1880s when corporations were declared to be 'persons'. They've been sucking the cream off the top ever since, resulting in the 'two Americas'. We got a major re-adjustment with the great depression, and the creation of the safety net, but the repukes have been snipping away at it ever since, trying to bring back the golden age of the corporate barons.

We're just about there.

Something I have been saying for several years myself. Corps are just fictional beings and as creations of the state (meaning the people) they should be responsible to the state.

Great Post!


:toast:

practical.

Corporations are not just Exxon and GM, but your local plumber and candy store. Plus, it could well be argued that the explosion of American industry and wealth in the early 20th Century was due largely to the status of the corporation.

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure just what benefit would come from changing the nature of the corporation.

federal reserve, start paying it off, and creating our own govt backed dollar. #3. Re-construct America with fast speed trains (so avg. people can hop on and ride). Shore up infrastructure. Create good border policies (including our ports and large transport routes)...These things can be done within America. America can directly hire and decide who supplies these things to re-build the crumbling infrastructure... Also, lead the way into green building, green energy and create a new stock market based on clean re-newable energy and smart building design/ green design. It just takes a President who is willing to where a protective vest everytime he walks outside.

what about the impending doom that we keep hearing about?

And, how come we haven't been doing this all along? It's the sort of thing I've been advocating, as if anyone's listening.

Plato said 2,500 years ago that any democracy was doomed because the elected "leaders" will simply give the whole country away pandering to people who scream for benefits of some sort. And never raising the taxes to pay for them.

Hmmm... isn't that the way we've been going for a while?

You bring back government regulation of the banking and mortgage industries, with particular emphasis on consumer debt in the form of credit cards.

Does anyone seriously believe that 32% interest rates are reasonable for anyone?

You provide government assistance to homeowners and home buyers to help them keep their homes, which will prop up the housing market, and jump start new housing starts of more reasonably priced homes.

You turn back the clock and roll back the Bush tax cuts for the super rich and the corporate entities. You reinstate estate and gift taxes on estates worth more than 2 million dollars so that some of that wealth will be taxed at least once every generation.

You put in some hard and fast rules requiring corporate officials to publicly disclose their compensation plans and support shareholders with legislation.

You initiate changes which support workers' rights, workers' benefits, and swing some of the bargaining power back to unions.

You put into effect an immediate tax on companies who do most of their business here but have moved their official principal place of business offshore to avoid paying taxes.

You provide US businesses with incentives for hiring US employees and not outsourcing jobs overseas.

These are but a few of things a new Democratic President could provide leadership on with a Democratic Congress. That is why this election may very well be about the survival of the middle class.

how do they affect this impending doom we keep hearing about?

We really can't keep living on the credit coming from increasing housing value, and we can't continue to borrow money from the exporters selling us stuff so we can keep on buying.

So, how do we maintain our current standard of living when a large part of the rest of the world is catching up?

Or do we?

Get out of the WTO, repeal NAFTA/CAFTA, and put an end to outsourcing.

Universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care.

Get out of Iraq, quit trying to patrol the world, cut military spending, and pour that money into our decaying infrastructure, creating jobs in the process.

Those would be a good start.

I'd also like to see a much bigger focus on affordable housing and public transportation systems.

too silly to think about. Trade has benefitted nations ever since the Phoenicians, and probably even before that, so we're going to keep on trading. All those nasty organizations attempt to regulate what could be a really nasty mess weithout them.

Now, cutting military spending is a good idea, but with so much of the budget going to subsidize jobs at military suppliers, it would take a while to replace them with something else.

Again, nice ideas, but even if we get started, will take forever to get something done.

I suggested getting out of the WTO and getting rid of NAFTA/CAFTA, which is not the same thing. In a global economy, I would like to hold those people we trade with to the same labor and environmental standards that we set for ourselves. That should be the foundation of any trade deals we make. Fair trade, not free trade.

We might be able to transition over to domestic infrastructure building quicker than you think; contracts to build bridges, levees, roads, etc. can go to people who hire displaced military workers. My first husband worked in the aerospace industry. He build space shuttles and b-2s. Even though they were different companies, they routinely transferred workers from place to place and company to company when one contract ended and another began.

You're right that it will take time. It will never, however, get done if we are so overwhelmed that we don't start at all.

the resolution trust company was the largest or second largest owner of residential real estate in the united states in the early 90s, as a result of the s&l crash and the huge wave of foreclosures

the federal gov't is a motivated seller and had a number of programs to incent people to buy the homes, good prices, all closing costs paid, many other benefits for lower income buyers

how do i know, i got my own home in a good neighborhood thru the rtc program, i saved tens of thousands, and the feds (who sold three other properties on this street) saved a small neighborhood

if there is another huge wave of such foreclosures, then i don't doubt the program will be rolled out again

it is better to spend some federal $$$ to get people in homes and to preserve/restore neighborhoods than to have empty boarded up houses and working people living in tents or trailers demanding social services

however, next time we should learn something and keep better control over the lending industry, it goes thru these cycles routinely and predictably of making bad loans and disrupting people's lives and finances when they are foreclosed on

also on a new orleans note, too bad we can't learn something and put a moratorium on building/rebuilding on the very lowest and most unsuitable ground, the people who romanticize the rebuilding in bad areas would not themselves live in the lower 9th ward or new orleans east, not if they had a choice in the matter!

it is just politically unpopular to make hard choices, and it seems so easy (and profitable for GOP developers) to make all kind of wacky loans

digress.

Yes, should there be a massive wave of foreclosures, some plan will undoubtedly pop up, and one would hope it would be better than anything this covey of incompetants would come up with.

More to the point, though, is that personal credit will probably dry up, and end-consumer spending might just dry up with it. Another round of stagflation as cost-push inflation hits just as spending dies off.

Most Chain stores are seeing a big drop including Wal-mart.
Yet Exxon Mobil raising higher each day......go figure.

Once the creditors(credit card companies, banks, mortgage companies, etc) believe that a large number of middle class and working poor are going to default, it is just a question of which will try to recoup what they can first by pushing them over the edge.

Many of the middle class and working poor have consistently paid their monthly payments under horrendous debt loads, but with the rising costs and loss of home equity they know that the situation cannot go on.

I think the creditors believe the middle class and the working classes are beyond the point of continuing to make their payments, and we are seeing moves to recoup what they can before everything implodes.

For example, I haven't bought bread for a while, and last winter it was $1.10. Last night I bought a loaf for $1.25. Another example, I buy half-and-half in quart containers. Just a couple weeks ago, it was $2.19 at the deli where I go. Last night, it was $2.50. Course, I don't need to even mention gas.

These nickels and dimes add up. If you are poor, forget about it - this HURTS.

and that is even for the "no name" great value walmart milk

it is to weep

The BushCo war on the middle class has victory in sight.

hang on, while you can, many more are going to drop off the cliff.

A lot of the US Middle Class and most of the Working Poor are NOT on the edge of a financial cliff.

They have gone over that cliff and are falling towards the bottom of the pit.

This person is ten or fifteen years too late.

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I can tell you I've been not only hanging by the edge of a cliff I have fallen to the next ledge that broke my fall and injured me even more , just like alot of people .

Not only do we have to find a way back up the the edge of the cliff or fall off to our demise .

I have long felt instead of bumper stickers supporting some candidate people who are hurting should have bumper stickers that read , I am broke and worried and hanging by a thread . At least this way we would have a real picture because most people are not going to tell you , even friends ,how bad off they are . I don't go around telling anyone I am close to the streets , it's not pride but held back fear .

I look around here and everything seems to be normal , the pace goes on but who knows by looking at someone how worried they may actually be ?

:hug:

It's amazing, too, though,...how so many struggle and still have the capacity to smile and to burden their lot with eyes focused on getting through the moment.

Actually, you DO know, within, how worried people are,...because you are a member of this American existence. Moreover, there are so many struggling, compassionate people, just like you, who also know your fear, too.

However, I will share an observation that, we are so much stronger than any one of us comprehends. We are.