You notice people around you suffering?

I know a couple people like that always in debt spend there paychecks before they get them its pretty sad

They trust and get taken advantage of.

Another perspective is that companies pay incentives for employees to save them money, and make them money. So you see things like insurance claim denials, and fine-print scam loans and mortgages.

Also some people think they "need" cell phone, cable, name brand clothes etc. When they really dont. Not saying live in poverty by choice, just saying use your freaking head, lol.

My old neighbor I watched get a new car, and move out into a new home, then one day the mail carrier accidentally delivered me her mail. It was a welfare check. I bought her a new car and home evidently with my working and living within my means. blah.

God help us if more Dems get elected. Their tax and spend will put us all in our economic graves.

Welfare fraud is HUGE!! There is no question it is a billion dollar problem, and it's probably closer to a trillion dollar problem.

PR_Tom,
You ever consider teaching college? You seem to be wise beyond your years. Would be nice to see someone like you educating those for the future - we could use that right now I think with all of the decay in New Rome.

Yeah, exactly..The republicans are the people to vote in! They have single hardly increased national dept to points never thought possible, may create a major recession and fucked up international trade so bad that it could only benefit the tax paying American.

It's almost un-American to vote Democrat if we want our country to survive.

Well put, but remember that Rome came back several times before it went down in flames, and China is still too far away to be the next Rome.

The fact is simple if you are on a fixed wage anyplace in the world the increase o food and energy has eaten into your wages. Those are the people who buy porn and they feed us so their pain is already translating.

nm nm nm nm

Cutting taxes and dramatically increasing spending is sure the way to go!

Sounds like the compassionate conservative, GW Bush to me. Oh and toss in a war they always help too.

Here are a few reasons homeowners are having a hard time;

When someone bought a house 4 or 5 years ago they did not expect to be paying double or triple the cost to heat their house.

When someone bought a house 4 or 5 years ago they did not expect their property tax to double or triple.

When someone bought a house 4 or 5 years ago they did not expect their food bill to go up 20 to 40%.

When someone bought a house 4 or 5 years ago they did not expect the dollar to hit an all time low.

Sometimes it is out of these peoples hands, sometimes its people using the system, sometimes people are stupid.

I am glad I did not buy my house 4 or 5 years ago...

Jobs aren't what they used to be. Even people who can get relatively high paying jobs and who have college under their belts aren't always secure because of the way the job market is these days. Too many people's livelihood is in the hands of some suit who works in an office 2000 miles away and has his head up his ass.

I know people who are up to their ears in student loans, graduated 4+ years ago, and who are working as waiters/waitresses because it's the only way they can make more than $10-$12 per hour and keep up with their debt! Education and work ethic are no longer of value. Why pay someone $30 an hour to do a great job when you can hire on three high school students or old ladies on state assistance, with no real pertinent skills, for for $8 an hour each and still have money left over? You put them through the corporate training booklet and they're just as good as the person with the degree, right?

My best friend's cousin, for example, graduated with a marketing degree, moved to New Mexico for a job, and then got hired on at an upscale restaurant where she can make twice as much waiting tables three days per week as she did working eight hour days five days a week before. Her original employer obviously didn't care to pay her a decent wage and her new employer basically passes on the majority of the expense of her services directly to his customers in the form of tips.

People around my dad's age are losing jobs they've had for 10 or 20 years for more reasons than I can even count. Losing a job at that age can be even more devastating than for a younger person because the options and potential are limited for someone who maybe only has 10 more years in the job market, if that.

On top of it all, many companies specifically set themselves up to NEVER have to pay out benefits, whether by hiring people on as "contractors" (which has a lot more restrictions in terms of how it can be applied than some people seem to think, but hey they get away breaking the law anyway just like debt collection agencies and property management firms) or by limiting their hours to just shy of full time so that they remain on state assistance or else just go without health coverage and all of the other perks that used to be par for the course when dedicating 40+ hours per week of your life to a company.

More and more, if the costs can't be completely bypassed, surcharged, or passed on to consumers directly in some way by the company, Americans are expected to work for outsource/immigrant wages and often with NO HOPE of advancing or raises. A few years ago, I had an employer who cut the entire staff's wages by around 20% per hour, removed all ability to request time off with threat of termination if you missed a scheduled day for any reason, and cut everyone's hours in half, all at the same time. I think I was the only one who left, and I was lucky because I was in a position to do so and still be OK. Oh yeah, and we were all classed as "independent contractors" ineligible for overtime or benefits of any sort. Just before I left, I heard the company was in some sort of trouble over the contractor status but left before I heard the outcome.

So yeah. I'd say things are pretty bad.

Ayla,
Those are pretty big reasons as well. Good post. :]

Excellent points, I think its a couple of things. Wages have been flat for a long time and the cost of everything is going up.Their pay check isnt going as far as it once did and forget raises now its will my job be safe. I have a feeling gas goes to 5 bucks a gallon porn sales are going to drop like a lead balloon imo. So Im preparing for that.

exactly, and not only are wages often remaining "flat" as you say, but they're often decreasing.

yay, war is good for everyone!

Unions are the ultimate problem, but noone compains cuz if your in one, your fucking in luxery land...

Unfortunately they do nothung but create inflation. Half the fat fucks i know in forklift land dont even move a muscle till 11pm rolls in when it becomes double time

I agree. But the war is not the major cause of wages going down. It has a lot to do with legal and illegal immigration/outsourcing/imports. But to be honest we needed that immigration spike to hide the true inflation rate. But now that the economy is slowing we are left paying welfare on those immigrants and those whos jobs were replaced/wages lowered by immigrants. And the real inflation rate is starting to peek its head out, hence the 20 to 40% spike in the food bills. (not saying the real inflation rate is 20 or 40% just saying its higher than the fed is saying)

Inflation rate in the US is a joke, it does not factor two big things food and Energy duh!
So anything tied to COLA is screwed and there is no job security.

I'm not an expert on the economy, and I'm not even going to pretend that I have answers or anything like that, but according to this website, the cost of the war so far, as of a few minutes ago, is $511,218,647,144.

Surely if that money had gone elsewhere, the country overall would be better off even if it isn't 100% directly correlated to dropping/stagnant wages.

The issues of the US and world economy are too complex for even the best economists to explain. The reality on the ground is that the US consumer is responsible for the boom in China and other countries so the world economy is tied into a knot. Now that the US economy is in pain the world is also in pain.

There is not easy resolution other than the US standard of living declining and that is happening.

How'd the republicans do over the last 8 years on these issues, Hal?

But... But... they were left with such a mess from the Clinton administration!

Hey Mike, I was on the subway the other day and started talking to these 3 cops about some shit, I wanted to know what we can get away with advertising a porn site around the city.. Anyways one of the cops tells me I should checkout Ampland, some section you had.. ;)

I don't know economy, and I don't know much about international trade. What I do know is now the average american can not afford a home. That means the market HAS collapsed. If the average person can no longer afford gas, food and a home... then we're done and it will take years to rebuild.

What I do know is politics, and there's a reason for everything. Put a lameduck in after Bush to guarantee a Democrat victory. They will fail horribly for 4 years as the average american struggles to feed their kids. Easy Republican nomination of a dream ticket.

Strangle freedoms some more and we're one step closer to a democratatorship.

"He who casts the vote decides nothing. He who counts the vote, decides everything."

It's not that complex to understand that hundreds of millions of people living their life on credit so the banks can post record earnings year after year has a limit, a ceiling. Investors are starting to wonder if they'll ever get paid back, and sell. It just doesn't add up in the end.

Note: the rich people of course will have saved and re-invested all this wealth, in other countries. ;)

Socks you are correct and that is the 21st first century equivalent of slavery. It is simply indentured servitude.

Shit, toss in 2 wars that are both ongoing!

That about sums up what is happening.

There was a housing bubble in many parts of the world; not just the US. Most people are just starting to wake up to this. Suddenly there are more articles on this after a lull of what seems like a few years to me. Seems to me there was more commentary on a worldwide housing bubble back about 2004/2005 with a massive (rightfully so) focus on the US as the housing market here turned South. The UK, Ireland, Spain and parts of eastern europe, China and India all had housing price bubbles. The IMF warned on this just this week. The people who own the dry cleaning service I use were telling me about the mind-blowing appreciation housing prices where they came from in India.

There was a general bubble in many asset classes in the past 5 years. There are food riots in many parts of the world because of the high prices. Haiti's prime minister was ousted this week after food riots. Look at the futures prices of any number of commodities such as metals, oil and gas and most food products. Even in non-dollar denominated currencies there are massive rises in the price of most commodities.

Financial institutions the world over played in the housing derivatives market getting involved in the "investment" of CDOs, the issuance of credit default swaps and many other such products. US, UK, Swiss and German banks have had some very difficult times indeed this year. Over $500 trillion dollars worth of derivatives are outstanding; a 5-fold rise in just 5 years. Compare this to the entire world economy of about $65 trillion per year.

Now 2008/09 growth forecasts the are being decreased the world over. Japan and the EU now slashing their 2008 growth forecasts. The imbalances in the world economy are great. It will be interesting to see how the world responds and what changes take place.

good read from business week : http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/...n_id=rss_daily

Just watched the BBC panarama program about similar situations in this country where more and more people are losing thier houses and people not spending as much as they used to, Plus house owners with 100% mortgages who are looking for a better deal cant find lower rates because the banks are now reluctent to borrow to each other, but one thing that they did say which was pretty scary is that more and more British businesses are looking at Asia and China to trade with and that the economic power is changing so they no longer regard the USA as the prime economic power of the world.

Yes, but since we are a community of business people...

Recession creates incredible opportunities as does period of revolution. Those who manage to hold onto their business through the bad times will be incredibly successful when prosperity returns. The falling prices create immense opportunity for those who managed to store away enough and didn't do shit like refinance their house (which appreciated 100% in 3 years--and they foolishly thought it would do the same the next three years) to buy jet skis or shit they didn't. The people that saved will be able buy and acquire businesses and opportunities when the prices crash.

Now, our business may see more competition. I've got 10 blogs and bought and paid for everything (as well as learning the ropes) from my blog writing business, while supporting myself. Though for me this was just more of an experiment after getting my J.D. and not wanting to enter the real world. But since people can suppliment their income with this industry with very little start up money and nothing but time, we may see competition increase where in other businesses it has lessened due to people dropping out of the industry due to bankruptcy.

For sure. And there have already been incredible investment opportunities the past 5 years. Investment in many oil and gas companies (both service and producers), commodity indexes or futures, some mining companies, direct play in metals (gold) have turned great profits already. Oil and gas company investment is holding my entire portfolio up.

a good read. Thanks

There's quite a few people who love to live well beyond their means. They gotta have an expensive house and cars, and they spoil their kids with cars and expensive clothes. Pretty much causing em to live from paycheck to paycheck. Sure you can have a dual income family making big bucks, but if you live beyond your means, all it takes is one event to bite you in the ass

yep that's it... they cash out and invest none.

gold and guns

2 of the best investments right now.

ammo being 3rd.

I really had not until the past couple of month. I hear more complaints now about gas, and food. I get more girls contacting me to work, and fewer hesitations when I tell them they need to suck a mean toe. I have a lot of more MILF's and over 30 people contacting me for work. All wanting to be scheduled, "ASA-FUCKING-P".

I also hear more hard luck stories in model interviews. Other than that, I really have noticed it in MY personal life. But I do hear more grumblings out there when associating with the others.

The University of Michigan/Reuters index of consumer sentiment fell to 63.2 in April. It's been below the trough reached in the last recession for some time now, and today's number brings it slightly below the lowest value in the previous (1990-91) recession as well. "

IMF World Outlook released yesterday. Lots of downward revisions worldwide; especially outside of asia. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/...8/01/index.htm

From the IMF whitepaper.
"The countries that experienced the largest unexplained increases in house prices were Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom?by the end of the decade, house prices in these countries were about 30 percent higher than justified by fundamentals. A group of other countries, including France, Australia, and Spain, have house price gaps of about 20 percent. Based on this measure, the United States is among the middle-ranked countries in terms of vulnerability to a housing correction, partly reflecting the fact that U.S. house prices have already declined"

What's really interesting is that the Republicans are spending it on the same areas their constituents normally complain about. The war will come and go but Medicare D will be here to stay. It will cost a lot more than the war in the long run. $725 billion through 2015. But .. try and stop me now. This is the biggest increase in US healthcare costs paid by the government in history. It is Bush' baby. He campaigned on it. He delivered it.

In Spain the situation is somehow similar to the US( of course, since the US fucked the whole world with their last year financial screw-up)

As far as "tax and spend", Borrowing (spending) now is taxing later. Bush has been "tax and spend" with huge increases in medical spending and a war budget. Social security costs, of course, continue to rise.

As far as Clinton, he was the huge beneficiary of the proceeds of a strong stock market bubble in the forms of revenue from the capital gains tax. He increased spending just the same as every other president has. He also had a Republican congress led by Gingrich who was every bit as resolved to cut the deficit as he was. Reading back on the articles of the time is interesting as Gingrich wanted to CUT more on spending side. Eventually they compromised.

It's not just the US. It's just that the US market is the biggest and most obvious place it occurred. 1980s deregulation of the banking and housing industry occurred in the UK, Spain, Australia, Canada and the Nordic countries. Look at what is happening in Swiss, German and British banks. Banks worldwide got involved in credit defaults swaps, CDOs and SIVs.

As far back as 2005 British regulators realized UK bank lending practices were too easy. Sure the same thing happening elsewhere.

Markit Group Ltd. a London company, was just getting ready to introduce new indexes on European markets and Alt A mortgages but postponed it as the repercussions became clear.

A lot of the same stuff has been going on in many parts of the world. Chasing yield.

Interesting stuff.

He was on our payroll, if anyone asks about porn, he says our name... To advertise these days you gotta think outside the box!