We teach a lot of useless stuff in schools, but not a single bit of financial education. A kid raised in a family like the one described above will never know any better. Or by the time he realizes that it might be too late. We, as a society, are encourage to spend $1.10 for every $1 made. Enhances stockholder value.
A lot of the 'middle class' is the 'payment class' now. Literally just individual clearinghouses to finance companies. 'Can I afford the payment' is the deciding factor for consumption.
This is actually a great point. A lot of discussion on income inequality, but if you look at the standard of living young adults have today vs 40 years ago, it's vastly improved. Cars, cell phones, food deliveries, on demand entertainment, etc.
I wouldn't look at this quite as a "have and have-nots" discussion. The middle class is shrinking, in fact the wealth of the middle class is down 20% since 1970. It didn't move into the hands of the lower class, the wealth all moved "upward" into the top 1%. I read somewhere recently that the top 1% own something close to 50% of the stock equity shares in America. If the trend continues, you end up with the bulk of all United States wealth concentrated in the hands of a few thousand people out of a country of 340 Million. This can also be looked at from a position of power/market influence. Want to start an apartment complex in your city to grow wealth? Sorry, wealthy guy who owns other apartment buildings in the area has pull with the zoning approval board and you get denied. The Waltons, Kochs, Cargills, etc. end up owning 15% of all of the real estate, and the majority shares of the stock market. Obviously you can make investments with $100MM that aren't available to the guy with $100K, so they compound those earnings.
I do think that's a large part of it. The 80s/90s brought about a whole slew of financial products that resulted in the average American having access to tons of capital they never would have before. 30-yr mortgages, prevalence of credit cards, and now 7-8yr auto loans. Of course, who owns the financial institutions and credit card companies that got rich off of it? JP Morgan and Chase Manhattan reaped a lot of it.
I do think there is plenty of truth to that. I do wonder what the end result is though. By that, I mean what does it look like in the US 50 years from now. If the "middle class" has lost so much wealth (20%) in 50 years, what will be left in the next 50 years? Is the natural result of our economy always 1% owning almost all of the country's wealth in the end?
What do you mean?
I think we do the same, but for aviation? Lol
That chart is a mess. The peak is just for dramatic effect as they're showing percentages of a total. What it's really showing is inflation. I'd like to see it adjusted for current dollars, which would make it nearly flat. I'd also like to se it go back to about 1800. I don't know for sure, but I feel like wealth inequality, to the extent there is such a thing, is increasing but still substantially less than it was when it was names like Rockefeller and Carnegie instead of Musk and Bezos.
What specific companies/industries do you think have monopolies/duopolies that are price gouging (at least on a broad scale; I'm not talking as much about very niche industries where those kinds of things tend to happen pretty naturally).
Broadband internet providers for one.
Had a employee ask me 'how do you get ahead?' Never spend all your money out of a paycheck - somehow you have to -not- spend $5 or $10 - every week. He didn't see how that could be done.
I don't know that particular persons circumstances, but in fairness, there are a lot of people who objectively make less than it takes to survive. They work for a living. Often in some of the worst jobs out there. But it costs $200 a week to live where they are and the job they can get only pays $150. It's pretty easy for some who fly around in little planes as a hobby to forget that there are people who just flat-out aren't smart enough to get an education and a better gig in the world and they struggle to survive as a result, because in the past 100 years or so, the number of jobs where one can support oneself with just manual labor has gone down by about 90% while the percentage of people who aren't smart enough to do anything more than that has stayed the same.
Back when I wasn't making what I do now, every extra penny (ok slight hyperbole) went to debt pay off. First was the vehicle because I couldn't deduct that interest. Then it went to mortgage. I bought WELL under what I could afford and only what I really needed. Once the car was paid off, I was making double sometimes triple mortgage payments. Tax refund - mortgage. Bonus - mortgage. Anything - mortgage. No vacations until it was paid off. Other then the plane (which was done on a HeLoc and paid off in 3 years) it all then started going into investments. You know how quick that starts to grow when you throw a house payment and car payment every month into a fund? Even since the mortgage payoff 20 years ago, I've only taken 3 real vacations and a honeymoon. Once the portfolio account reaches a certain point, then we can relax and really start to enjoy life.
Your 'handle' reflects your post, admirably.
