Middle? WHAT MIDDLE?
Reports are coming in from all over. The economic meltdown is causing all manner of havoc in peoples lives. I am getting cries for help from people who have never had major economic problems before. My friends and family are suffering, and so are you and yours. This from reuters:
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Moderate and lower earners under more pressure
By Joanne Morrison
Tue Jul 22, 2008WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The trouble that began last summer in the financial markets raised the likelihood of a U.S. recession, but for America’s middle class, the downturn has been under way for many years, experts plan to tell a congressional panel on Wednesday
Hit with higher gasoline prices, declining home values, rising health-care costs and little or no income growth since 2007, the outlook for those in the middle class and those with even lower incomes is dire.
“In the post-war period, the country grew together. Now we are growing apart,” said Kristen Lewis of the American Human Development Project, in testimony prepared for delivery on Wednesday to the congressional Joint Economic Committee.
A report showing the growing disparity in wealth in the United States was released recently by the American Human Development Project, a nonprofit project whose major backers include Oxfam America and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Citing Census Bureau data, Lewis told the Joint Economic Committee that in 2006, the average annual income in the top quintile of U.S households stood at $168,170 — nearly 15 times the average income of $11,352 a year in the lowest quintile.
The richest 20 percent in the country earned more than half of the nation’s total income.
“The American meritocracy, the foundation of the American Dream, is at risk. Social mobility is now less fluid in the United States than in other affluent nations,” she said.
The top 1 percent of U.S. households possess a third of America’s wealth and the bottom 60 percent only 4.2 percent, according to Lewis.
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SONOFABUSH! Most of the population now fits into the “low and moderate earner” category mentioned above! If you think you can hang on until you retire, think again! This from ap:
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About half of pension sponsors have frozen plans
By JIM ABRAMS,
Associated Press Writer
Tue Jul 22, 2008WASHINGTON – About half of employers with defined-benefit pension plans have frozen one or more of those plans, putting the retirement incomes of millions at risk, according to a government report made public Tuesday.
The Government Accountability Office said more than 3 million people covered by its study, which represented about a fifth of all participants in single-employer defined-benefit plans, are affected by freezes.
Most sponsors with frozen plans have set up retirement savings alternatives, such as 401(k) plans that may offset some losses, but “a freeze generally implies a reduction in anticipated future retirement benefits,” the GAO said.
“When companies freeze plans, older employees often experience huge benefit losses and younger workers are left to save for themselves,” said Karen Friedman, policy director for the Pension Rights Center. “Congress needs to step up to the plate to develop solutions that encourage companies to preserve their employer-paid, guaranteed pension plans, not freeze them.”
Employers often freeze pension plans as a step toward terminating those plans and replacing them with defined-contribution plans such as 401(k) plans. The GAO survey of 471 single-employer defined-benefit plan sponsors found that nearly a third ultimately expect to terminate their largest frozen plan.
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THIS MEANS YOU! They are screwing us, both young AND old. They are screwing us both male and female! The CorpoRATeer power elite thieves, holed up in their luxury homes, are taking a “play and pray” approach to the economic disaster their greed has brought about. In this cynical game, they “play” for time and “prey” that YOU don’t catch on and hold them to task for THEIR GREEDY FAILURE! They “prey” on YOUR FOOLISHNESS. They have the “audacity to hope” that YOU will go out and waste YOUR VOTE on one of the syphilitic co-joined twins of the apocalypse called mcbama!
Once the Olympic and convention circus’s are over, you can look forward to obamessiah and the reverend mcPain PROMISING to feed you with the loaves and fishes. What bread you will actually get will be STALE CRUMBS as the two parties of the apocalypse CONTINUE TO SPEND THE REAL DOUGH ON PORK BARREL MILITARY EXPENDITURES! Are YOU going to fall for their bullshit AGAIN like YOU have for several elections?
In just two months, YOU will have a choice to make. YOU will have to decide whether YOU will waste your vote on one of the two parties of the apocalypse celebdidates, mcpain and nobama. YOU WILL NOT GET ANY HELP FROM THOSE REPUB OR DEM IDIOTS! THEY, ALL OF THEM, HAVE BEEN IN CAHOOTS AND CAUSED THIS MESS! OUT WITH THE WHOLE ROTTEN BUNCH I SAY! IF YOU FINALLY HAVE A CLUE, YOU WILL VOTE FOR THE ONLY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WHO WILL FIX OUR PROBLEMS:
DAGNABIT! The Telepathic Crickets™ on the ClapSotronics editorial board and I are tired of seeing YOU get screwed by the pro military industrial complex dirty dems and filthy repubs! SUPPORT AND VOTE NADER FOR REAL CHANGE!
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