S & P Dire Warnings
 

http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...05-column.html

Growth and income inequality.

The markets continue to piss me off. What's a guy with a 401K to do.....

Up...then down...up then down....

So, low wages aren't good for the economy? Who knew?

Dave

Overview

• At extreme levels, income inequality can harm sustained economic growth over long periods. The U.S. is approaching that threshold.
• Standard & Poor's sees extreme income inequality as a drag on long-run economic growth. We've reduced our 10-year U.S. growth forecast to a 2.5% rate. We expected 2.8% five years ago.
• With wages of a college graduate double that of a high school graduate, increasing educational attainment is an effective way to bring income inequality back to healthy levels.
• It also helps the U.S economy. Over the next five years, if the American workforce completed just one more year of school, the resulting productivity gains could add about $525 billion, or 2.4%, to the level of GDP, relative to the baseline.
• A cautious approach to reducing inequality would benefit the economy, but extreme policy measures could backfire

https://www.globalcreditportal.com/r...40804-19:41:13

Everybody except the sharks down on Wall St. Those damn soshulists at S&P are a buzzkill. :rolleyes:

The economy will not get better until Obamas gone and even then it will be time for a bubble to pop and a recession.

The only thing the present POTUS has to do with this is his opponents stifling the recovery to make him look bad.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Don't quote, thanks.

I am sure that a lot of people knew. When the wages get depressed, consumer base with disposable income shrinks. So demand deceases.

A college education increases one's earning power but the cost of education has sky rocketed. I made a rough comparison on the tuition fees for the school I went to in 1969. Tuition fees per quarter was equivalent to 170 hours of work at minimum wage then. Now it's equivalent of 630 hours at today's minimum wage. So working part time and going to school is not an option without financial assistance from family or student loan. As wages keep dropping, how many parents can afford to pay for their children's education?

4-2-7 is not here for an intelligent or productive dialog. He is here strictly to bash Obama, the left wing or if nothing else to disrupt the conversation.

At the very least, please do not quote him and thus validate his posts. Thanks.

You should be OK Potter.

Not because of your 401 K, but because of Social Security.

The most I ever made while I was working was 55K a year and I draw $22,500 a year in Social Security. And I only have to pay $105 a month out of that for Medicare.

So if you and your wife did about the same as I did, you'll get about 45K a year combined from Social Security. That's enough for a frugal empty nester couple to live with some semblance of dignity as long as they stay away from high cost of living areas.

But make no mistake.

The Koch Brothers, who have enough wealth right now to pay yours and your wife's social security for the next 2.2 Million years, (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...rs-to-ads.html) are not satisfied with that. They want more, and they have sent their hired guns, the Republicans, to take your Social Security away from you.

Ayup. Modern day captains of industry like the Kochs have a black hole where their guts are. No amount of wealth or power can ever be enough for them.

Greed is good, IGM, FU!

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

You stole that from "Tombstone" didn't you?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tombstone

It's one of my many favorite scenes from that movie.

That is a big 10-4!

I'll never tell. ;):rolleyes:

I do like some Doc Holliday, tho. :cool:

As Merrylander oft called it, the Jack principle. As in "I got mine Jack, fuck you." :rolleyes:

Randy your new role model? :D

It seems like homeownership is going down among college educated young people....

which is a very bad trend. I imagine most people who are fortunate enough to own their homes when they retire may start leaving them to their kids so they will have a place to live after the parents are dead.


That is what they do in the developing world. My wife's extended family lives in her deceased parents' home (which would never pass any sort of building code here lol).

In the Philippines families take in everyone that is a blood or marriage relative into their homes. I mean one day you will be old and helpless you do not want to be an asshole to those who may be feeding you in your old age.

Come on Steve you know that's not true. If it was then why do I hear so much drivel about Bush tax cuts.

The Bush tax cuts were ill-advised in a time of increasing spending on operation Iraqi Freedom and their sustainance by Obama was a calculated tradeoff on recovery vs the revenue the cessation of them would have provided, aside from opposition by those that didn't really need them. Ted Cruz's costly grandstanding did nothing but senselessly burn other folks money in a stupid display of hubris, further delaying a much needed recovery. Just more stonewalling calculated to embarrass the standing Admin.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Newman? ;)

The bigger issue that no one seems to be noticing: by refusing to do any sort of work we are not getting the Congress we pay for i.e. the disrespect shown to the country by blocking Obama on EVERYTHING has meant a decrease in the functionality of Congress and by extension the concept of effective (Big in the terms of the GOP) government. Thus the right wing animus against effective government becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Big government does not work because we will not let it.

The executive can function because the laws already on the books are still there to administer. It is only a question of funding, and eventually Congress will pass a bill for that so they can receive their salaries. But the legislative and judicial branches are sort of left adrift and cannot be effective for the times. A prime example would be the inability to fix some of the quirks of the ACA.

So because of the Republicans we are drifting by degrees to sort of becoming a banana republic/third-world/ and or developing nation. They are inadvertently increasing executive power and devolving the seat of their influence, Congress. And it will be awhile before you see a GOP Presidiente standing at the podium wearing a pair of big sunglasses.

Oh, some of us definitely noticed.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

SS has already been looted.

Pete

It certainly has and now the left is looking for more way to generate funds into it. Not for us but to have more to loot again.

That's what a Ponzi scheme is for.

SS has always been 'looted.' The idea of taxes now to fund benefits later was always a lie. What we should do now is, 1) tax all income, not just up to a limit, and 2) let the rate float to whatever it needs to be to cover that year's benefits.

Just like Obamacare!!!

Big problem though with that one it's going to die before it starts because of the babyboomers.

So no body knows or can plan a bugget, wow very good that will work.:rolleyes:

Oh, so now Wall Street tells us "trickle down" economics doesn't work and that the Randian Gekkoites were probably wrong?

Nice to hear after 30+ years of selfish, unbridled greed driven destruction. Good thing we have these geniuses around to help us avert disaster. We might have lost most of our industry by now.:rolleyes:

Dave

Thanks for this real world look at it Tom, I appreciate it a lot.

This is the plan my missus and I have. Neither one of my kids are doing great. They struggle. Buying a car is almost impossiblefor them so home ownership is totally out of the question. We're planning to move to the east coast to be near them. The plan to buy a home big enough for a milti generational family and leave it to them.

Things have changed since I started out. They will never have the opportunities I had.

22 a year. Is that before taxes? You know, if I manage to buy a cheap house cash I might be able to make it work. I've always figured I'd die in the traces. Thanks x2.

Pete

That's only if your people, the Republicans, don't get their way.

Keep voting Republican and you might. That's what they want for you.

Don't thank me. Thank that old "racist" FDR.

Once a racist, always a racist, right? No hiding him now Tom ;)

According to my dad it was sold as a forced savings account basically and a bare safety net. In 1935 life expectancy was 60 male and female 64.

SS reform was passed under the evil Reagan. I remember it well - it tripled my fica withholding.

It was supposed to cover the boomers retiring. Instead the politicians spent it (big surprise there?).

So now we'll have to figure out how to pay for increased structural spending of that now-gone surplus, plus pay for the SS itself again. All while having the same increased fica.

I don't blame the Dems Tom, it belongs right on the backs of the whole rotten lot of them.

Pete

As usual Pete, your entire post is full of shit.

I'll start with your assertion that your FICA with holding tripled with the Social Security reform of 1983.

In 1982 the total FICA with holding was 6.7%

http://www.tax-atlas.com/historical-fica-tax-rates/

By 1990 it has risen to the current level of 7.65%.

Wanna try to show me how you got tripled out of that?

I don't think so.

That's all I have time for now.

I reserve the right to take apart the rest of your full of shit post at a time of my own choosing.

Be that as it may, we all sat around the bar on payday and marveled at it. If I'm wrong I'd guess we didn't understand what went up and why.

Here's the breakdown of the '83 law that 'saved' SS:

http://www.ssa.gov/history/1983amend.html

Feel free to take apart the rest of my shit post when ever you can, if ever.

Pete

So that's your excuse for how you got "tripled" out of an increase from 6.7% to 7.65% over a period of six years?

http://www.ssa.gov/history/1983amend.html

You were drunk?

And here it is 30 years later and you were still saying it tripled.

Does that mean you've been drunk for the past 30 years?

I have to admit, that to me would be a plausible explanation for the kind of posts you make here.