A decade after Lehman Brothers, the United States is still a Stucknation



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Well, surprise, surprise. A president elected on the promise to help the working class has once again opted to preside over an even faster acceleration of the concentration of wealth at the top of the American pyramid economy.

They all talk a good game, but once they settle at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they take care of the people who belong to this country.

On this point, there is a bipartisan line that began in the 1970s when middle-class Americans saw their purchasing power dwindle as their productivity increased and the wealth generated became more and more important. more important.

This month marked the tenth anniversary of the dramatic collapse of Lehman Brothers and, in all respects, it seems that bankers who have lost $ 20 trillion in American family wealth are living more than ever.

READ MORE: Watch Lehman Brothers collapse from the inside: a 2008 rookie on the last days of the bank

According to the New York State Comptroller, Wall Street's pretax profits totaled $ 13.7 billion in the first half of 2018, up 11 percent from last year. Last year, pre-tax profits jumped 42% to $ 24.5 billion, up significantly from the 21% jump recorded the year before.

"Wall Street has been profiting every year since the end of the recession in 2009 and compensation has reached its highest level since the financial crisis," said New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli in a statement.

The average salary in the securities industry in New York State rose 12% in 2017 to $ 403,100, the highest since 2008 and the third highest after adjusting for inflation. New York had the highest average salary of any state in the country, reflecting the concentration of highly paid employees, such as general managers, in New York. "

In the meantime, here on planet Earth, we are supposed to be excited when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in August the average hourly wage increased by 10 centimes one hour in a country where the average work week remains 34.5 hours.

According to the latest monthly report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics staff participation fell to 62.7% under President Trump, continuing its overall downward trajectory since 1990's

Many of us are just fending for themselves, caressing and cutting down America 's halftime. Keep in mind that this rush of national prosperity is already a daily pledge as the dislocation of 2008 continues, like a treadmill that brings so many people to misery.

As has been widely reported, the number of Americans aged 65 and over who have filed for bankruptcy has risen sharply. In a report entitled "Graying of American Fallout from Life in a Risk Society »researchers found a doubling of the rate of bankruptcy of older Americans and a five-fold increase the percentage of seniors in the US bankruptcy system.

"The social safety net for older Americans has declined over the past two decades," according to the study's summary. "The risks associated with aging, reducing income and increasing health care costs have been transferred to seniors."

The abstract continues: "The extent to which older Americans grow in bankruptcy is such that the general trend of an aging American population can account for only a small part of the effect. . . . For a growing number of older Americans, their golden age is fraught with economic risks that often lead to bankruptcy. "

But not only are more and more elderly people being chewed and spewed by the Great Pyramid system that sucks all the wealth at the top. The lack of widespread prosperity has depressed household formation, as a whole generation has been turned into debt slaves at the service of their college borrowers living in the basement of their parents.

Consider that in 1972, 1.9 million new households were formed. In 2017, we saw only 400,000 people. In fact, last year, household formation in Trumplandia slowed, as did housing starts.

the Annual Report of Harvard University Joint Housing Studies Center found this "Homeownership rates among young adults are even lower than in 1988 and the proportion of renters paying for costs is significantly higher, with nearly half of tenants paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing.

Ongoing analysis: "Rising housing costs is largely responsible. The national median rent increased by 20% relative to headline inflation between 1990 and 2016 and the median house price rose 41% faster. "

Harvard researchers said that "nearly a third of US households (38.1 million) paid more than 30% of their income for housing in 2016", more than half of which ($ 20.8 million), homeowners who earn less than $ 30,000 find themselves struggling to pay for their homes.

At the same time, the study found that "the increase in the median selling price of existing dwellings exceeded that of median household income for six consecutive years".

Stucknation.

It's the part of Obama's legacy that nobody talks about when he's credited for having "saved the economy." What he saved was the Wall Street machine that brings in money and often encourages things like ecological destruction.

And do not believe the hype of supporters just because they have a "D" after their name, that they are friends of the huge army of tens of millions of dollars. Americans who work long hours and struggle week after week for housing. and the basics.

Exhibit A is former Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator from Delaware, the sanctuary state who offered non-transparent protection of limited liability companies to Russian mafia, vulture capitalists and transnational corporations. As International Business Times reported in 2015, it was Joe, a fake blue collar, serving Delaware's booming banking sector, who managed to ensure that student loan debt was not repayable by the bankruptcy courts.

And what a pile of debt and misery has taken hold of Joe's pyramid. In 1990, there was only $ 24 billion in student debt. In 2012, it reached 110 dollars. Today it is $ 1.5 trillion.

Now it's a monument.

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