There's a thread over in GD-P that scares the living hell out of me

[Bozita]

This one: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x34463

Zogby: 70% of Americans believe they're 1-3 paychecks away from poverty

Scary!

[Speck Tater]

1. Almost nobody realizes that Human Civilization is 1-3 decades away from extinction. nt

[debbierlus]

2. That isn't surprising at all. I know I am.

[David Zephyr]

3. Yep. One year and Obama's never had a national speech about job creation.

It's too late now for Democrats in November to turn the numbers. It should have been Obama's first priority. It's still not even on his radar as far as the public sees.

There will be hell to pay in November.

Year One Priorities: Bankers, Goldman-Sachs, Insurance Cartels and the Defense Contractors.

Year Two Priorities: Who Knows?

[arcadian]

8. Yet you have DUers saying Obama will have accomplished more in his first year than any other Pres.

:eyes:

[FBaggins]

11. These are the folks who believe that good intentions are good enough.

Plenty of shrub's defenders felt the same way. Sure he blew out the deficit... but at heart he was a deficit hawk.

They're hardly alone. How else could he win the Nobel Peace Prize if they weren't giving it out based on hope for good intentions?

[FLAprogressive]

26. +1

[FLAprogressive]

27. to them speeches and meaningless proclamations count as accomplishments

[FBaggins]

9. Those are the kinds of mistakes that come back to bite you in the a$$...

...because they hint that the priorities you ran on were not your own values.

The right hasalready begun to spin these things. You said that "x" was important to you... but you only met with the commander in the field one time" (or whatever).

It's easy to handly one or two of those... but you're right. There could very well be he11 to pay.

[CTyankee]

39. I think it is time for an all out WPA a la FDR.

Obama cannot create other jobs, but he can have a massive works program. Paul Krugman said as much in a column last week I believe. I hope that we have enough money to do that.

The other thing that has to happen is a surge in what we actually make in the U.S. I think Obama knows what that is -- probably green technology -- but I don't understand why he hasn't taken the lead on it...

[Amonester]

4. I bet President Obama's "corporate handlers & advisors" will do...

ANYTHING they can do in order to "hide" this poll.

Not much left to bet with, but will $10 be enough?

[sad sally]

13. At today's daily press briefing Mr. Gibbs said polls don't matter to the President

[Amonester]

16. So the "bubble-makers" he surrounded himself with have won.

So long to the we'll-be-listening-to-what-the-people-who-elected-us-say other promise.

Polls didn't matter to cheney/bu$h too. We all saw how well it worked out.

Hope I'm wrong.

[phasma ex machina]

48. Bubble-makers hard at work

[onenote]

5. first, its an interactive zogby poll. second, that wasn't what the poll actually showed

Go to zogby's website and read about it yourself. It was an interactive poll. Of those responding, 20 percent said that they already consider themselves poor and 52 percent said they can imagine becoming poor. The 1-3 paychecks away appears to be nothing more than hyperbole in an utterly subjective poll -- I suspect the range of people who consider themselves "poor" covers a lot of ground.

Moreover, the poll found that 33 percent of Americans expect their financial situation to improve a year from now and that 50% believe their personal financial situation will be better off five years from now, while only 18% think their situation will be about the same, and 20% believe they will be worse off financially five years from now.

Equally unreliable. And not particularly scary.

[FBaggins]

6. Zogby made up the money quote.

The poll said that 70% "could imagine themselves becoming poor or already think they are"... Zogby was the one who said "what that means is".

We've saved diligently almost all of our lives. We're far from "rich" but are well beyond three paychecks from poverty.

But I most certainly can imagine myself becoming poor. That's WHY we saved so diligently. We both have ancestors who were.

[JVS]

7. Good. It's about time people wake up and stop thinking of themselves as rich when their interests..

are not the same as those of the rich.

[ShamelessHussy]

10. an old story - though still scary, but 1 in 4 children are now on food-stamps (NYT) - YIKES

that really floored me... yet our 'leaders' INSIST on continuing to DITHER in the ME :argh:

more...
http://current.com/items/91577307_1-in-4-us-children-on-food-stamps-real-recovery.htm

[ipaint]

12. Elizabeth Warren has numbers which show

that more than likely people are and should be very concerned.

"Families have survived the ups and downs of economic booms and busts for a long time, but the fall-behind during the busts has gotten worse while the surge-ahead during the booms has stalled out. In the boom of the 1960s, for example, median family income jumped by 33% (adjusted for inflation). But the boom of the 2000s resulted in an almost-imperceptible 1.6% increase for the typical family. While Wall Street executives and others who owned lots of stock celebrated how good the recovery was for them, middle class families were left empty-handed.

The crisis facing the middle class started more than a generation ago. Even as productivity rose, the wages of the average fully-employed male have been flat since the 1970s.

But core expenses kept going up. By the early 2000s, families were spending twice as much (adjusted for inflation) on mortgages than they did a generation ago -- for a house that was, on average, only ten percent bigger and 25 years older. They also had to pay twice as much to hang on to their health insurance.

To cope, millions of families put a second parent into the workforce. But higher housing and medical costs combined with new expenses for child care, the costs of a second car to get to work and higher taxes combined to squeeze families even harder. Even with two incomes, they tightened their belts. Families today spend less than they did a generation ago on food, clothing, furniture, appliances, and other flexible purchases -- but it hasn't been enough to save them. Today's families have spent all their income, have spent all their savings, and have gone into debt to pay for college, to cover serious medical problems, and just to stay afloat a little while longer."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/america-without-a-middle_b_377829.html


There isn't going to be a recovery for the working class and probably the bottom of the middle class this time. The wages are not there and now neither is the credit which hid the low wage problem through the last 2 decades.
We can no longer afford to be the world's consumers.

[guitar man]

14. Aww c'mon

After all isn't hunger a "great motivator" ?

Productivity by those that are still working must be way up! We should rejoice at this great news, we're teaching people not only to pull on their bootstraps, but also to be resourceful, think of all the great new recipes for "bootstrap soup" we will come up with when we realize pulling on them isn't doing any good and we resort to eating them!

:sarcasm:

Seriously though, this is pitiful, a downright disgrace. We are the richest nation in the world and we are sliding backward at a ridiculous rate because a few people in this country have duped much of the citizenry into being scared of words. Words like "socialist, liberal, wealth redistribution" etc. are used as verbal bogeymen by the mouthpieces of the elite to scare us out of doing anything economically progressive and on the interest of the general welfare. It's sick sad and pathetic and it's time for it to stop. Enough already!!

:grr:

[proudohioan]

43. OOOHHH, sounds delicious! Can we exchange recipes?

Cuz I'm just at a loss for NEW ideas for preparing bootstraps.....you know how it is, the kids are getting sick of the same ol', over and over again!

[guitar man]

46. You gotta break 'em first

They are best when they've been broken first from trying to pull yourself up...

[stopbush]

15. And I'd wager that the same percentage of Americans believe that they are

upper middle class...and just a winning lottery ticket away from living the American dream.

[quiet.american]

17. Y'all crack me up. Who trashed the economy in the first place?

Same old stuff.

Republicans trash it, then stand around (apparently now joined by the legions of "the liberal disappointed") with their thumbs up their asses complaining that the Democrat is not cleaning it up fast enough.

Laughable.

[Egnever]

19. I would laugh with ya but...

its pretty freakin sad.

[quiet.american]

20. You know what would be sadder. The current situation w/GOP in charge.

Yeah, you want to talk about sad.

Let's talk about my industry drying up after 9/11 and no work at all in sight.

Let's talk about the GOP-controlled Congress voting to NOT, that is, NOT, extend unemployment benefits (unlike our current Congress -- I've lost count of how many times they've done it) and leaving me with ZERO, that is, ZERO income.

Let's talk about how under the GOP, funding was slashed to programs that were a lifeline to the struggling citizenry, with a "heh, heh."

And let's talk about how all these types of threads avoid mentioning the help that has been given to small businesses and the unemployed by Pres. Obama, INCLUDING, saving/creating jobs, the progress of which one can see state-by-state at Recovery.gov.

You want to talk sad? You want to really be scared? Think of what would be going on now with the GOP in charge. That's what is truly scary.

[librechik]

24. you got that right!

nevertheless, AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[Marr]

32. You don't actually believe that, do you?

It's just the big bad Republicans who pulled the rug out from under the middle class?

Clinton did as much to further that goal as Reagan, and we Congressional Democrats barely lifted a finger to so much as slow that 'Republican trashing' over the last eight years. If they *could* allow a further assault on the working class, they did. It took real electoral poison-- privatizing Social Security-- to get them to put the brakes on anything. Obama seems to be operating in the same mold as Clinton. The corporatocracy trashed the economy for the average person-- and they occupy both parties.

This political party bullshit is a bad joke, at least on the national level. Two different maketing campaigns for the same product.

[quiet.american]

42. Did Clinton leave a deficit, or a surplus? How about Bush?

Did the GOP include the costs of their two wars in their budgets or no?
Did a Republican president take a surplus and turn it into a deficit, or did we all dream it?
Did the Republicans actually offer an ecomomic plan this year that contained no numbers? True or false?

Give me a break.

[reggie the dog]

18. Who can go 1 to 3 months without pay and be ok?

Do you get weekly checks in the states? Here in France we get monthy checks, so hell yeah not being paid for 3 months would sort of tap out my savings account too. Having said that unemployment here is 80% of your wage and you get it for as long as you had worked. Then you get public aid.

[Greyhound]

21. Most every two weeks, a lot every week, and few get paid monthly.

You can assume that means 2 - 6 weeks.

Unemployment varies from state to state, so the amounts vary dramatically, a maximum of $230 p/wk in Mississippi up to $628 p/wk in Massachusetts. But some relatively high-income states pay very little. but none are anywhere near 80% of your salary and because of our idiotic health care system, nearly all lose their benefits. We have this thing called COBRA, suffice it to say that not too many people can afford to keep paying for their insurance on what they get from unemployment.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/LearnToBudget/how-much-jobless-pay-would-you-get.aspx">Here's an article with more detail.

[reggie the dog]

23. I am glad I left the USA before I started working full time

I had no idea how much better it was here before I arrived.

[librechik]

25. Oh? Do you live in Oz?

I'm going in January--(envious of your ability to drop acid, fellow freak--we lost our cn)

[reggie the dog]

31. I live in France

acid came around for the first time in years this summer....

[librechik]

35. cool--have to plan a trip there someday!

Thanks, reggie!

[Greyhound]

47. I really wish I had, but noooooo, I kept thinking that some semblance of sanity would

retake the U.S. and we would move away from the abyss.

Had I the cynicism and self confidence to admit that my country was dead and that picking over the corpse would not last, I would be a French (probably) citizen today and I could watch the never-ending train wreck from a safe distance.
:shrug:
Oh well, perhaps things will get bad enough that some nations will begin to accept refugees.

[Ignis]

44. What is this "savings account" of which you speak? (nt)

[punkin87]

22. I am

[joeybee12]

28. Most people live paycheck to paycheck...it's crazy...n/t

[bread_and_roses]

36. what's "crazy" is that so many have no choice BUT to live paycheck to paycheck

Given the decline in wages - or at least flat wages, wages that noway keep up with cost of living, low-wage workers have no choice but to live pay to pay. You can't save $ when to get enough groceries through the month you have to use the food bank the last week, since you're pay won't stretch that far if you pay the elec co and the car insurance.

We have endured roughly thirty years of ever-increasing income/wealth disparity between the top 1-5% and the "bottom" 80% or so...the 15% in between seem to be doing "OK" - or were, until the latest economic disaster. But 80% or so struggling just to keep up with all the expenses associated with a two-income household when an upper 1-5% is accumulating vast wealth is far, far too many. Such inequality endangers our democracy. And I see just about nothing either in the past year or so far on the horizon that addresses this gap. I am trying to be hopeful about today's "job summit." About time.

[joeybee12]

38. I know lots of people who spend every cent they make...if they get a raise...

...they spend more...people in this country don't save...granted, the hard times is making it more difficult, but we have never been a nation of savers. You're right, real wages haven't increased in the past 30 years, only briefly during Clinton's time...many people are essentially making the same as they were 30 years ago.

[AllentownJake]

29. Elizabeth Warren declares the middle class dead today on HuffPo nt

[marshall]

30. But what sort of lifestyle are they living?

It's all relative. They may see poverty as not being able to afford the newest and biggest plasma screen television, or have the yearly trek to Disney World. or drive that SUV all over the place.

[TwilightGardener]

33. I think it's more a reflection of what's in people's saving accounts...

which is probably not much, or nothing at all. (Speaking as one who doesn't have much in her savings account right now, for various reasons).

[marshall]

41. And doesn't Zogby reach only a specific demographic?

Aren't the polls done online? It is reaching computer savvy people who most likely own their own computer and have the time to respond to an online poll that isn't going to give them any immediate payback. That screams middle class to me.

[benEzra]

45. Ummm, how about not being able to afford to pay for health care, your mortgage, and food?

Not everyone living on the ragged edge of bankruptcy is doing so because they keep buying huge TV's. That was the line the repubs and corporatist Dems used to sell the "bankruptcy reform" law a few years ago, but it's largely a fraud.

Personal example, I have a good income, two hand-me-down CRT TV's we got for free (biggest is a 19"), no cable TV, have never in my life or my kids' lives been to Disney World, and I drive a 1997 4-door sedan that gets 18-22mpg around town and 27-32mpg on the highway. And we are in that 1-3 paychecks away from bankruptcy category.

My best friend is a single mom who until a couple weeks ago was working 3 jobs to stay afloat (she is now working 2, as her third employer just closed up shop due to the economy). She makes pretty decent pay, works extremely hard, drives an old car with no a/c (in Florida), and everything she owns except the car would fit in a small 1-room apartment.

Be careful about assuming that people who live in a precarious financial state are living extravagantly, particularly in THIS economy.

[bigtree]

34. even scarier

. . . to be living that reality

[AngryOldDem]

37. That's been the accepted statistic for years.

Not in the least bit surprised.

[anarch]

40. I've been living paycheck to paycheck ever since I started working

I've been in the land of lowered expectations for a very long time. I just figured that was the way it was supposed to be for anybody who isn't wealthy...that's certainly the way things are set up to perpetuate themselves. I also expect to just keep working until I drop dead on the job. Aren't I one of the lucky ones, since I still have a job?