Are you a casualty of the class war?

[almaty 19]

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit an all-time high and Wall Street firms are posting some of their best earnings ever. For the first time in our nation's history, the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans includes only billionaires. In fact, having only a billion dollars means you're not on the list. As a group, the Forbes 400 has a collective net worth of $1.25 trillion.

So the rich are doing well. But how about the middle class?

More Americans than ever are living in poverty, living without health care, paying more for housing and for the costs of our public education. And real wages are falling.

Real median earnings of full-time working males fell nearly 2 percent last year, according to the Census Bureau, while the real wages of working women fell by 1.3 percent. Despite that, real median household income did manage to rise slightly last year, though that small gain was the first increase in household income since 1999.

So what has been keeping our middle class afloat in the face of rapidly rising costs? American families have been living on, as well as in, their homes. More than one-third of homeowners are spending more than 30 percent of their income on the cost of housing, a level that pushes the edge of affordability. Nationwide median home values from 2000-2005 jumped 32 percent, and homeowners have been pulling equity out of their houses in order to keep up with escalating tuition bills, health care costs and energy costs.

But not everyone is so lucky. The number of Americans without health coverage rose by 1.3 million last year, up to 46.6 million, according to the Census Bureau. What's worse, more than one in 10 American children are now uninsured. Fewer employers than ever are providing health care to their employees and those who are still lucky enough to receive employer-provided coverage are paying a much larger share: The Kaiser family foundation says the cost of family health insurance, in fact, is up 87 percent since 2000.

The same holds true at the pharmacy. Prices for the most popular brand-name prescription drugs this year rose substantially higher than the annual inflation rate, as has been the case every year this decade. The AARP concluded prices for the top 193 drugs climbed 6.3 percent over the last 12 months ending in June 2006, while inflation went up 3.8 percent. Generic drugs, however, rose 0.4 percent over that period of time.

The costs of higher education are also hurting middle-class families like never before. In this increasingly credentialed society, the total cost of tuition, fees, room and board at four-year public colleges and universities has ballooned 44 percent over the past four years. And the proportion of family income it takes to pay for college is growing for families everywhere. The biggest jump, according to the National Center for Higher Education, is in Ohio, where college costs now take 42 percent of the average family budget, up from 28 percent in the early 1990s.

Our dependency on foreign oil is also hamstringing working men and women. Gasoline prices are back on the decline (for now), but many Americans this summer were shelling out double what they used to pay to drive their cars. And gas prices now, while lower than at their peak in August, are still about 60 percent higher than in January 2001.

Perhaps one of our nation's leading business magazines would like to create something called a Forbes or Fortune 250 Million list, which would reveal the dire financial pressures that our public policies have produced for working men and women and their families. It's time for all of us to focus on that deep chasm we have allowed to open between the wealthiest Americans and the middle class and those who aspire to it.

Otherwise, there will be 250 million casualties in what has become nothing less than class warfare.

[homesick_american 1]

I think if you're not rich, you probably are.

[almaty 19]

i agree...trickle down

Edited October 4, 2006 by almaty

[rebeccajo 14]

I think if you're not rich, you probably are.

I'm not getting that..............

[almaty 19]

I think if you're not rich, you probably are.

I'm not getting that..............

me either,,,but need some coffee

[Mirorgate 0]

I think if you're not rich, you probably are.

I'm not getting that..............

me either,,,but need some coffee

Fresh brewed pot... come on over n get some brother mine.

as to what she might have meant... Money aint everything and there are more inportant things in life.

[homesick_american 1]

I think if you're not rich, you probably are.

I'm not getting that..............

The rich are running off with all the money and the middle class are getting hosed, but not as bad as the poor.

[AnaAndDaniel 0]

I think if you're not rich, you probably are.

I'm not getting that..............

me either,,,but need some coffee

Fresh brewed pot... come on over n get some brother mine.

as to what she might have meant... Money aint everything and there are more inportant things in life.

hermano espejo is a wise hombre. (of course, sis homesick starteed it all).

Daniel

:energetic:

[Nikita2Charles 32]

YEAP!

It affects me personally as the CEO of Unitedhealth care is raking Billions $$$ in personal gain, while they are forcing their doctors in the network to accept a lower pay, at the same time they are increasing our premium, Now you can see where all that money is going.

For a CEO of an HMO to make $billions from the average worker whose trying to make ends meet, this is the new america.

Outsourcing Jobs overseas for cheap labor so the company can increase profit margin, yet the engineers, and technician, the average worker whose doing all the dirty work only get peanuts,where all the profit stays, way at the top in the CEO and the board of directors pockets, On a meeting One of the engineer even asked the CEO, when we are talking about cost cutting, asking employee to take force vacation, while the company is making $millions in profit, where does that profit going? His reply to the shareholder, hmmm but guess who's one of the major share holder ( HIM CEO, board of directors) This is the new America.

[rebeccajo 14]

Let them eat cake?

[homesick_american 1]

Let them eat cake?

No, that's not what I meant. Unless you're rich, you probably are a victim of the class war because the rich are screwing the rest of us over.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I think if you're not rich, you probably are.

I'm not getting that..............

me either,,,but need some coffee

It is interesting that the skyrocketing prices of homes have kept many families afloat. I'm wondering what's going to happen to those who've been paying interest only loans with the expectation that the equity in their home would save them if they sold their house after a couple of years.

[homesick_american 1]

It is interesting that the skyrocketing prices of homes have kept many families afloat. I'm wondering what's going to happen to those who've been paying interest only loans with the expectation that the equity in their home would save them if they sold their house after a couple of years.

Probably the same thing that happened to many people here in the UK: crippling balloon payment at the end of the loan, or worse. My MIL had an endowment mortgage (what interest-only loans are called here) and she was several thousand pounds short at the end of it. The big endowment mortgage shortfall crisis is still going on in the UK with claims against financial service institutions for 'mis-selling' of such mortgages.

It's a risky mortgage and I'm guessing a lot of people are going to take a bath.

[AnaAndDaniel 0]

It is interesting that the skyrocketing prices of homes have kept many families afloat. I'm wondering what's going to happen to those who've been paying interest only loans with the expectation that the equity in their home would save them if they sold their house after a couple of years.

Probably the same thing that happened to many people here in the UK: crippling balloon payment at the end of the loan, or worse. My MIL had an endowment mortgage (what interest-only loans are called here) and she was several thousand pounds short at the end of it. The big endowment mortgage shortfall crisis is still going on in the UK with claims against financial service institutions for 'mis-selling' of such mortgages.

It's a risky mortgage and I'm guessing a lot of people are going to take a bath.

yah. i couldn't believe that the institutions offerd such loans. then i couldn't believe ppl would take such loans. bleh, what do i know?

Daniel

:energetic:

[Mirorgate 0]

yah. i couldn't believe that the institutions offerd such loans. then i couldn't believe ppl would take such loans. bleh, what do i know?

Daniel

:energetic:

more than you let on!