Double Dip Recession, ConDems and sniffling Ed

[shtove]

Also where did Ginger go?

Redundancy.

I've followed this economic mess since early 2007.

My view is we're in for skipping recessions for the next ten years - we've had five years already. The idea of growth is dead until then. No prediction of what comes after that, although energy constraints seem to be the controlling factor even now.

The only point of politics at the moment is to determine the division of a reducing pie of wealth. Overall the idea of a middle class is receding, and there's nothing can be done about it. So Lefties and Righties will necessarily shoot themselves in the feet over tax/spend.

We could revise the nonsense that the state committed us to in the bank bail outs, but even that revision (not going to happen) wouldn't put off the great reckoning over our excessive consumption.

Not hopeful about the future, but I'm still an optimist - people tend to figure things out, even if we're poor.

 

[LittleGuy]

Redundancy.

I've followed this economic mess since early 2007.

My view is we're in for skipping recessions for the next ten years - we've had five years already. The idea of growth is dead until then. No prediction of what comes after that, although energy constraints seem to be the controlling factor even now.

The only point of politics at the moment is to determine the division of a reducing pie of wealth. Overall the idea of a middle class is receding, and there's nothing can be done about it. So Lefties and Righties will necessarily shoot themselves in the feet over tax/spend.

We could revise the nonsense that the state committed us to in the bank bail outs, but even that revision (not going to happen) wouldn't put off the great reckoning over our excessive consumption.

Not hopeful about the future, but I'm still an optimist - people tend to figure things out, even if we're poor.

While obviously since 2008 there has been an overall reduction in wealth people who like to point out the "shrinking middle class" also like to point to thirty year trends and make these assertions but there really was no evidence that backs up these claims, and most of it is poorly misinterpreted data or deliberately falsified data meant to get us angry at the 1% or some other such nonsense. In fact much of the data problems come from the very simple definition of middle class...most definitions of middle class incomes are between 40,000 to 60,000 dollars(in the United States and Canada are my main examples). In the United States when incomes were rising many analysts did not move their definition of middle class to match the overall upward trend so it appeared as though the number of people who were middle income was receding, when in fact they were better off.

Inflation can also move people into higher income brackets without their actual purchasing power or standard of living improving. This is a huge problem when people try to make income comparisons over time, if they don't use "real income" statistics that are adjusted for inflation. In 1967 in the United States 18.3 percent of households had incomes of less than 15,000 dollars (in 2007 terms) while in 2007 this had shrunk to 13.2 per cent. This rising economy had lifted up everyone even if these people didn't appear in the middle class bracket.

I'll allow someone much more intelligent than I am to assert my argument....