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As the corporate media strike the drum of the impending recession, we must examine how tens of millions of US households who live from one paycheck to the next are facing another slowdown choreography.
He will tell you everything you need to know about the predatory nature of advanced vulture capitalism, which Donald Trump presides over as an orange mascot. What is obvious when you look at the data is how much the "longest recovery" was fictional – the one for which Joe Biden wants to make a victory lap.
Lost ground
The harsh reality is that over the past decade or so, the rich have become wealthier as the rest of the country is indebted more and more deeply, with no other result than rents.
At the dawn of the next economic downturn, tens of millions of American families are on the verge of economic oblivion. Thanks to the Trump tax cut, their government will be too indebted to leave them a lifeline.
The $ 20 trillion in lost wealth of US households resulting from the uncommitted theft of household wealth during the grand foreclosure round has had generational consequences that persist and still define many lives today.
The last of the Federal Reserve "Report on the economic well-being of American households, " published in May, investigated 11,000 adults. She found that to cover an emergency expenditure of $ 400, 39% of those surveyed would be forced to borrow or sell something to obtain money.
In the real world
Many years after this "incredible recovery", the Federal Reserve has found that "across the country, many families continue to struggle financially and struggle to save for retirement and face unexpected expenses."
The monthly evolution of family income has remained a source of financial stress for some people. Three out of ten adults had a family income varying from one month to the next. One in ten had difficulty paying their bills at a time in the previous year due to the monthly income change. Financial support from family or friends to make ends meet was also common, especially among young adults.
The annual survey found that "many adults were struggling to save for their retirement," with one in four having "no savings for retirement or pensions."
I can not imagine why.
In the years following the Great Recession, student debt exploded from $ 500 billion to $ 1.57 trillion. Non-housing debt rose to $ 2.65 billion in 2008. In the second quarter of this year, it exceeded $ 4 trillion.
Dude where is my car?
In February, while Trump was talking about his wall with Mexico, seven million Americans, a record number, fell into this chasm 90 days late with months behind schedule. car payment.
See a model here?
We are now fighting to keep our family car, just as we were trying to keep our home just ten years ago.
President Obama's fateful decision not to provide the kind of protection to homeowners who Franklin D. Roosevelt done in the 1930s may have crushed Wall Street. But he sent thousands of neighborhoods into a death spiral where once-repairable homes were turned into shells of zombies dug by ruthless speculation.
These scars still live in our landscape, including Flint, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey, where homeowners face the possibility that public water poisons their children and grandchildren with the lead.
Millions of seizures that the devastated quarters of the hardest color of all represent a massive transfer of wealth from the American working class – that it took generations to build it – to the class of Wall Street predators that precipitated the crisis.
Historically, homeownership could bring stability to an extended family by providing temporary shelter for a family member or university graduate stuck in student debt.
Remember equity?
Homeownership also offered a vital potential for capital realized by borrowing on the equity of the property, which could help a family cope with a loss of employment likely to occur during the period. economic downturn.
As the Pew Center According to reports, more Americans live in rental housing each month than at any time in the last 50 years.
In 2006, the proportion of renter households was 31.2%, according to Pew. In 2016, it reached 36.6%, which exceeds "the recent peak of 36.2% established in 1986 and 1988 and is close to the rate of 37.0% in 1965."
Certain demographic groups – such as young adults, non-whites and less educated – have always been more likely to rent than others, and rental rates have increased among these groups over the past decade. However, rental rates have also increased in some traditional groups less likely to rent, including whites and adults of average age.
The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University found that a lack of affordable rental housing helped to raise rents four times faster than the rate of inflation. "The US consumer price index for prime rents increased at an annual rate of 3.8% to April, well above the 0.9% inflation rate for non-commodity properties. housing, "revealed the analysis.
Half a century of betrayal
Since the 1970s, when wages were halted by rising productivity and unions began to contract, US companies managed things by paying back both political parties.
In recent years, as a result of this collusion of comfort, the economic situation of our elected representatives has continued to vastly outpace that of all others. They appear ready for all that capitalism has to offer.
As Call reported last year, "The cumulative net worth of senators and members of the House jumped by one-fifth in the two years leading up to the Congress, outperforming the improved fortunes of the typical American as well as the strong performance of the markets of the United States. investment during this period ".
The disparity becomes evident after reviewing the most recent financial information from virtually all current lawmakers. The news will probably not be useful for a mid-year campaign, when Capitol Hill's disapproval remains in record territory and the sense that politicians in Washington are far too disconnected from the life of the United States. their constituents remain very strong.
Can not be helped
A critical element in overcoming the collective anger of the United States over decades of declining wages, loss of benefits, and the actual decline in our average lifespan is to hedge the ups and downs of the economy as it was a natural weather phenomenon.
But the types of gyration on the market that favor dislocation and misery for the masses are not the result of gravity or barometric pressure. These are the consequences of decisions motivated by a shrinking circle of people and institutions managing the shortage – because killing is the only way to make a living.
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