Is the time of Liberty at hand?
- Thread starter Damocles
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WinterBorn
Guest
Bullshit. I hold them to the same standards. I hold everyone to a level of honesty and personal responsibility.
Bfgrn
New member
Sources: US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
There were over 1.6 million bankruptcy filings last year, up 7.4 percent from the previous year. And according to a new book, more people will end up in bankruptcy this year than will suffer a heart attack, than will be diagnosed with cancer or graduate from college.
The families in the worst financial trouble are not the usual suspects. They are not the very young, tempted by the freedom of their first credit cards. They are not the elderly, trapped by failing bodies and declining savings accounts. And they are not a random assortment of Americans who lack the self-control to keep their spending in check. Rather, the people who consistently rank in the worst financial trouble are united by one surprising characteristic. They are parents with children at home. Having a child is now the single best predictor that a woman will end up in financial collapse.
Consider a few facts. Our study showed that married couples with children are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as their childless counterparts. A divorced woman raising a youngster is nearly three times more likely to file for bankruptcy than her single friend who never had children.
Over the past generation, the signs of middle-class distress have continued to grow, in good times and in bad, in recession and in boom. If those trends persist, more than 5 million families with children will file for bankruptcy by the end of this decade. That would mean that across the country nearly one of every seven families with children would have declared itself flat broke, losers in the great American economic game.
Bankruptcy has become deeply entrenched in American life. This year, more people will end up bankrupt than will suffer a heart attack. More adults will file for bankruptcy than will be diagnosed with cancer. More people will file for bankruptcy than will graduate from college. And, in an era when traditionalists decry the demise of the institution of marriage, Americans will file more petitions for bankruptcy than for divorce. Heart attacks. Cancer. College graduations. Divorce. These are markers in the lives of nearly every American family. And yet, we will soon have more friends and coworkers who have gone through bankruptcy than any one of these other life events.
And the lines at the bankruptcy courts are not the only signs of financial distress. A family with children is now 75 percent more likely to be late on credit card payments than a family with no children. The number of car repossessions has doubled in just five years. Home foreclosures have more than tripled in less than 25 years, and families with children are now more likely than anyone else to lose the roof over their heads. Economists estimate that for every family that officially declares bankruptcy, there are seven more whose debt loads suggest that they should file for bankruptcy — if only they were more savvy about financial matters.
Unseen dangers
Who are the families in so much trouble? Most are like Ruth Ann and James — ordinary, middle-class people united by their determination to provide a decent life for their children. Like James, many had been felled by a layoff or a business failure; someone who glanced at this year’s tax return might label them as poor. But very few were chronically poor. For most, poverty was only temporary, a setback in an otherwise solidly middle-class life. When membership in the middle class is defined by enduring criteria that don’t disappear when a pink slip arrives — criteria such as going to college, owning a home, or having held a good job — more than 90 percent of those in bankruptcy would qualify as middle class. By every measure except their balance sheets, the families in our study are as solidly middle class as any in the country. And they are united by another common thread: Most of these families sent two parents into the workforce.
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Bfgrn
New member
Do employer profits increase with higher productivity?
DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
The Dude = Topdoper? Or Legion's rendition?
DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
Bfgrn
New member
No....you don't. You mean to tell me a 30 page credit card application isn't written to ultimately swindle people? I am much more willing to give some slack to honest, hard working people who do not have the knowledge of a corporate lawyer when reading a contract. I give ZERO slack to the corporation that wrote the contract if that contract was devised to hide trapdoors, and deceive customers.
Your replies reveal the opposite...
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WinterBorn
Guest
Bullshit. If it were some necessary service like a public utility you might have a point. But its a fucking credit card. It is a method for spending money you do not have yet. People sign up for them by the thousands and charge away like its free money. This is the fault of the credit card company? Bullshit!!
When people ASK FOR a credit card, and then do not read the contract, it is not their fault?? And you say that is right??? lmao No, people who burn thru money they don't have only explains why they accept the budget nonsense our gov't pulls.
Bfgrn
New member
Thank you for proving you were LYING...you DON'T hold everyone to a level of honesty and personal responsibility. Only the little guy. Very typical of you corporate ass lickers who were raised to believe wealth=virtue. To slime like you, a scurrilous corporate contract is just 'creative' and 'shrewd' business
Bfgrn
New member
That is only a valid argument in certain cases, but the overall picture reinforced by other statistics paints a different picture. The wealth gap has never been wider than it is today. It mirrors the days before the Great Depression.
This article was written before the economy crashed and burned...
Monday, 4 September 2006
During the five years from 2000 to 2005, the US economy grew in size from $9.8 trillion to $11.2 trillion, an increase in real terms of 14%.
Productivity - the measure of the output of the economy per worker employed - grew even more strongly, by 16.6%.
family incomes
But over the same period, the median family's income slid by 2.9%, in contrast to the 11.3% gain registered in the second half of the 1990s.
The wages of households of African or Hispanic origin fell even faster.
And new entrants to the labour market fared particularly badly.
Average hourly real wages for both college and high school graduates actually fell between 2000 and 2005, and fewer of the jobs they found carried benefits such as health care or company pensions.
The poor performance of the US economy in delivering fuller wage packets may be one reason why the public gives the Bush administration's such a low rating on economic policy.
According to the latest Gallup poll, only 37% approve of Mr Bush's handling of the economy, and 70% think economic conditions are getting worse, substantially worse figures than in 2004.
With mid-term elections to the House of Representatives and Senate - both, currently, held by Mr Bush's Republicans - due in November, the contrasts are concentrating minds in both main parties.
Where has the increase gone?
One way to comprehend what is happening is to look at the split between how much of the economy is won by profits and how much by wages.
The share allotted to corporate profits increased sharply, from 17.7% in 2000 to 20.9% in 2005, while the share going to wages has reached a record low.
Meanwhile, a large section of the workforce - the unemployed or those not seeking work - have not benefited from economic growth.
Unemployment has remained stubbornly high despite the economic recovery, with the latest figure at 4.7% compared to 4% at the end of 2000. Overall job growth in the first half of the current decade has been just 1.3%.
In the 1990s, job growth of some 12% goes some way towards explaining why prosperity in that earlier period spread down the income scale.
Rising inequality
Even for those with jobs, the fruits of economic growth have been more unequally distributed within the labour market.
income inequality graph
The incomes of the top 20% have grown much faster than earnings of those at the middle or bottom of the income distribution. The income of the top 1% and top 0.1% have grown particularly rapidly.
From 1992 to 2005, the pay of chief executive officers of major companies rose by 186%.
The equivalent figure for median hourly wages was 7.2%, leaving the ratio of CEOs' pay to that of the average worker at 262.
In the 1960s, the comparable figure was 24.
There has been much debate about the extent to which the tax policies of the Bush administration, which lowered many taxes on capital, have contributed to this trend.
The administration argues that the tax cuts have been vital to the economic recovery, and that more jobs and higher wages will eventually follow GDP growth.
It also says that the encouragement to invest delivered by lower taxes has made the US more productive, and therefore more competitive in the global economy.
Explanations
The authors of the EPI report argue that low minimum wages, weakened union power, and the loss of both blue and white-collar jobs to off shoring do much to explain the jobs picture.
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WinterBorn
Guest
You are so full of shit. Both sides agree to a contract. If EITHER side does not fulfill it, I say they should be punsihed.
You want the "little guy" to be able to get a credit card, shop for all sorts of crap, then blame the credit card company for his debts. Total bullshit.
And spare me the "slime", "corporate ass lickers" or whatever other fantasies you are entertaining. Either debate me like an adult or go sit at the children's table.
Bfgrn
New member
If you want to be treated like an adult, then act like one. PAY ATTENTION. I don't want 'the "little guy" to be able to get a credit card, shop for all sorts of crap, then blame the credit card company for his debts.' I never said that or even implied that.
WHAT I said is:
I am much more willing to give some slack to honest, hard working people who do not have the knowledge of a corporate lawyer when reading a contract. I give ZERO slack to the corporation that wrote the contract if that contract was devised to hide trapdoors, and deceive customers.
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WinterBorn
Guest
I have no problem with you arguing the point it is the hostile, puerile, extra shit that annoys me. You know: "Very typical of you corporate ass lickers who were raised to believe wealth=virtue. To slime like you, a scurrilous corporate contract is just 'creative' and 'shrewd' business"
As for the 30 page credit card apps, if it is too complicated then they should not sign it. When they sign it and whine later I have little or no sympathy for them.
/MSG/
Uwaa OmO
Do workers skill sets increase with the rise in productivity?
Bfgrn
New member
But no condemnation for the scurrilous INTENT of the corporation and their contract...and you continue to wonder why I have called you what you ARE?