Economic Reality: The Bottom 50% Of Americans No Longer Matter!
The Fed likes to brag about the “We saved the world” recovery, in essence it has been a artificial saving with worthless digital numbers. Over 40% of the world assets are now in the hands of Central Banks. However, the unfortunate truth of the matter is a record half of American families live paycheck to paycheck.
A large portion of Americans are unprepared for nearly any problem.
- 53% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
- 50% are woefully unprepared for a financial emergency.
- Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) Americans have nothing set aside to cover an unexpected emergency.
- Nearly 1 in 3 (31%) Americans don’t have at least $500 set aside to cover an unexpected emergency expense.
- 49% of employees are “concerned, anxious or fearful about their current financial well-being.”
A Fed study shows U.S. households will soon have as much debt as they had in 2008. The Federal Reserve announced Friday that the U.S. has $1 trillion in credit-card debt. In a Holla Forums thread it became apparent that the defaults on CC debt are rising to the 2008 levels. The FED is maintaining that the industry is healthy and delinquencies are 'still really low', factual data doesn't matter. Just keep telling the sheep all is well with a smile.
Due to the FED increasing the interest rates when Trump was elected, it is now merely a matter of time before a large portion of outstanding debtors opt out of paying of their debt and declare bankruptcy, ultimately another crash or quantitative easing rounds are incoming.
Another visible trend is that a older generation of Americans are taking on a greater share of debt then since pre-2008. Of those aged 60 and older held 22.5% of total household debt in the fourth quarter of 2016, in comparison in 2008 they held 15.9% in 2008, while in 2003 they held 12.6%. Most of the debt is mortgages and secondary mortgages hence why give wealth to your children if you can live the high life and give the outstanding debt to your children. A alarming trend is that they are also shoulder more student loan debt for their children and grand children. There were nearly 2 million debtors in 2015 between the ages of 50 and 64 who took on a "Parent PLUS" loan, which the government offers parents. Another 200.000 debtors over the age of 65 also have them. Respectively in 2005 there were roughly 1 million parental tuition loan debtors. After 2016 escapades and election showing the state of education in the US there is suspected to be a large drop in college enrollment.
All this summarizes that Americans have nothing for their retirement. On average a American couple has $5,000 saved for retirement, 1 in 3 are saving money in a employer-sponsored or tax-differed retirement account.
On April 19th, we saw that only 44% of Americans paid any taxes. More than 31% of all federal individual income tax is paid by those who bring in more than $1 million a year, who have a net effective tax rate of 25.3%, the highest of any group. Another 14% of income tax is paid by those who make between $500,000 and $1 million, who have a 20% tax rate, the second highest. The common working man doing the average job doesn't matter any more, yet they are the backbone that holds our world together.
The Fed does not give a damn about the bottom half of the economy even though it spouts continual lies about “income inequality. A buzzword the Democratic Party loves to tout. As long as the Fed can keep stocks and home prices elevated, there is no concern about the food-stamp, rent-subsidized, Medicaid-supplement, disability-income, Obongocare-subsidized 50% of Americans struggling paycheck-to-paycheck retiring into a RV or car due to their pensions unable to afford the insane costs of retirement home care.
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