"HE IS THE SACRIFICE THAT HAS PAID THE PRICE FOR OUR SINS, AND NOT FOR OUR SINS ONLY, BUT FOR THE SINS OF ALL PEOPLE IN THE WHOLE WORLD. THE WAY IN WHICH WE MAY BE SURE THAT WE KNOW HIM IS TO KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. THOSE WHO SAY, "I ACCEPT HIM" BUT DO NOT KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS ARE LIARS, AND THE TRUTH IS NOT IN THEM. BUT FOR WHOEVER KEEPS HIS WORD, THE LOVE OF GOD IS TRULY PERFECTED IN HIM."
1 JOHN 2:2-5
Sunday, May 20, 2018
The Long Death Of America's Middle Class
I have been writing a book on Korea's rising inequality problem. The following post addresses the reason for the middle class of America hollowed out and how to secure your spot among the "haves" in a moment.
From Zero Hedge:
From Zero Hedge:
In 2015, it dipped below 50% of the population for the first time since data collection started on the issue. It’s now an official minority group.
Meanwhile, nearly half of Americans don’t have enough money to cover a surprise $400 expense. Many are living paycheck to paycheck, with little to no cushion. And US homes are less affordable than they’ve been in decades—possibly ever.
I’ll tell you why this is happening and how to secure your spot among the “haves” in a moment. But first, let’s take a look at the America that was.
...In short, the average American’s standard of living has taken a huge hit over the past generation or so.
...Notice that the downtrend starts in the 1970s. More on that shortly…
Clearly, home prices have risen much faster than income levels since 1970.
That debt has helped hide the slump in the average person’s standard of living.
Cars are another large expense for Americans. Debt has helped camouflage a big price increase there, too.
Americans are now over $1.1 trillion in auto debt. This figure has skyrocketed 2,954% since 1971.
Americans have also racked up more than $1 trillion in credit card debt. This debt explosion also started in the early 1970s. Credit card debt is up 14,281% since 1971.
So why are Americans going deeper and deeper into debt?
It’s simple: The cost of living for the average middle-class family has risen dramatically faster than its income.
Since 1971, there’s been a dramatic—and growing—split between work and wages. As the next chart shows, the average person’s real wages have more or less stagnated since the early 1970s.
With higher expenses and stagnating wages, people have made up the difference with debt.
Eventually, I think this trend will lead to a genuine crisis. And it won’t be pretty.
In the meantime, a perfect storm of economic pressures will further hollow out the middle class. Tens of millions of Americans will be kicked down the ladder.
As Doug Casey puts it:
Most middle-class people will end up joining either the upper or lower classes—mostly the lower—and that’ll be a moral disaster for the country.
If you want to firmly establish yourself in the world of the “rich,” I recommend…
- Owning hard assets like physical gold, silver, and certain real estate.
- Owning the highest-quality, elite businesses. Think businesses with attractive dividend yields—even better if you buy these standouts at bargain prices.
- Holding some speculative investments. They can leapfrog your wealth. Think transformative technologies like cryptocurrency and blockchain, the booming cannabis industry, and natural resource stocks.
- Protecting what you’ve earned from taxation, inflation, and other forms of confiscation by internationalizing your assets. This reduces the threat any one particular government poses to your wealth.
These are the four tenets of lasting wealth. They’re time-tested strategies. And they work.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-18/long-death-americas-middle-class
Sunday, May 6, 2018
"ANYONE WHO DOES NOT OBEY MY COMMANDMENTS DOES NOT LOVE ME. THESE WORDS YOU HEAR ARE NOT FROM ME; THEY BELONG TO THE FATHER WHO SENT ME. ALL THIS I SAID WHILE STILL WITH YOU. THE ADVOCATE, THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHOM THE FATHER WILL SEND IN MY NAME, WILL TEACH YOU ALL THINGS, AND WILL MAKE FRESH IN YOUR MINDS EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID TO YOU. PEACE I LEAVE WITH YOU; MY PEACE I GIVE TO YOU. NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES, DO I GIVE TO YOU. DO NOT LET YOUR HEARTS BE TROUBLED, AND DO NOT BE AFRAID." JOHN 14:24-27
Collusion: How Central Banks Rigged the World For the Next Financial Crisis
From Jesse's Cafe:
One can assume many motivations for the munificent treatment that the Big Banks have received in the US.
The fig leaf is that this was done for 'the sake of the system' wrapped in dollops of fear and uncertainty mixed well with jargon and complexity. This is the art of the fraud.
We do have the historical example, from a much worse banking crisis in the US during the 1930s, that a thorough reform of the banking system is possible, and significantly less expensive than bailing them and their elite holders out, legally and financially.
The major difference in the handling of each crisis is how the resolution prioritizes the distribution of financial and legal consequences.
In the 1930s the public and the depositors of the banks were given the highest priority for resolution and future protection.
In the most recent banking crisis it was clearly the banks and their creditors and management who were given the greatest amount of consideration by far. Indeed, what set this up was a decades long campaign to overturn the last of the safeguards that had been passed in that 1930s crisis, a notably bi-partisan effort greased by hundreds of millions of dollars.
One might take into account the prevailing cultural climate, at the forefront of which is the current political campaign financing system that provides enormous amounts of money for the politicians from the financial class and moneyed interests.
There is also the phenomenon of the emergence of a discrete and significantly more influential and wealthy professional elite as a coherent class, many of whom know each other, have gone to the same schools, and move back and forth between diverse economic sectors and public office. And they have significant personal financial entanglements.
This is of more than historical importance. Why? Because it is all going to happen again, most likely during Trump's term of office. It makes little difference who is sitting in that White House chair, since Hillary would have certainly would have served the same purposes. There were other choices that would have been more favorable, but the established two party system would not have any of that. Nothing personal, but reform would be bad for business.
It would be a monumental mistake to assume that the powers that be will have 'learned anything' from what they have done during the last two financial crises since 1999. They were not 'asleep at the wheel' then and are not so now. That is a myth, like the CEO of the failed business who can claim to have little or no involvement in the company which he served for enormous amounts of compensation, as in the case of Enron for example. Or MF Global.
The thought that this time will be different assumes something very fundamental about their priorities and purposes and how they have changed.
And by all recent accounts and current observations, you are stilll not one of them. Not the other guy, not 'those people,' but you. You do not matter to the powerful And if you think you do, then I am sorry but you are seriously deluded. And you have a lot of company on both sides of the red-blue divide.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.kr/2018/05/collusion-how-central-banks-rigged-world.html
"A crash could prove to be President Trump’s worst legacy. Not only is he -- and the Fed he’s helping to create -- not paying attention to the alarm bells (ignored by the last iteration of the Fed as well), but he’s ensured that none of his appointees will either.
After campaigning hard against the ills of global finance in the 2016 election campaign and promising a modern era Glass-Steagall Act to separate bank deposits from the more speculative activities on Wall Street, Trump's policy reversals and appointees leave our economy more exposed than ever.
When politicians and regulators are asleep at the wheel, it’s the rest of us who will suffer sooner or later. Because of the collusion that’s gone on and continues to go on among the world’s main central banks, that problem is now an international one."
Nomi Prins
One can assume many motivations for the munificent treatment that the Big Banks have received in the US.
The fig leaf is that this was done for 'the sake of the system' wrapped in dollops of fear and uncertainty mixed well with jargon and complexity. This is the art of the fraud.
We do have the historical example, from a much worse banking crisis in the US during the 1930s, that a thorough reform of the banking system is possible, and significantly less expensive than bailing them and their elite holders out, legally and financially.
The major difference in the handling of each crisis is how the resolution prioritizes the distribution of financial and legal consequences.
In the 1930s the public and the depositors of the banks were given the highest priority for resolution and future protection.
In the most recent banking crisis it was clearly the banks and their creditors and management who were given the greatest amount of consideration by far. Indeed, what set this up was a decades long campaign to overturn the last of the safeguards that had been passed in that 1930s crisis, a notably bi-partisan effort greased by hundreds of millions of dollars.
One might take into account the prevailing cultural climate, at the forefront of which is the current political campaign financing system that provides enormous amounts of money for the politicians from the financial class and moneyed interests.
There is also the phenomenon of the emergence of a discrete and significantly more influential and wealthy professional elite as a coherent class, many of whom know each other, have gone to the same schools, and move back and forth between diverse economic sectors and public office. And they have significant personal financial entanglements.
This is of more than historical importance. Why? Because it is all going to happen again, most likely during Trump's term of office. It makes little difference who is sitting in that White House chair, since Hillary would have certainly would have served the same purposes. There were other choices that would have been more favorable, but the established two party system would not have any of that. Nothing personal, but reform would be bad for business.
It would be a monumental mistake to assume that the powers that be will have 'learned anything' from what they have done during the last two financial crises since 1999. They were not 'asleep at the wheel' then and are not so now. That is a myth, like the CEO of the failed business who can claim to have little or no involvement in the company which he served for enormous amounts of compensation, as in the case of Enron for example. Or MF Global.
The thought that this time will be different assumes something very fundamental about their priorities and purposes and how they have changed.
And by all recent accounts and current observations, you are stilll not one of them. Not the other guy, not 'those people,' but you. You do not matter to the powerful And if you think you do, then I am sorry but you are seriously deluded. And you have a lot of company on both sides of the red-blue divide.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.kr/2018/05/collusion-how-central-banks-rigged-world.html
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