[Specop_007]

Or victim or circumstance. Let me take a minute for an aside here, the title character count is RIDICULOUSLY low.

Moving on. This is a very interesting read in regards to American middle class. Its quite long, but sheds a very different light on how the American middle class is living and whats causing thier problems.
According to this article, its not overconsumption.

Article
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he over-consumption story gets a big boost from current economic data. First, families have more money to spend. The typical two-income family today earns nearly 75 percent more than their one-income parents earned a generation ago.

[PrairieMule]

Good find Spec,

Speaking from the middle it's getting tougher. The wife and I outgrew our material consuption bug soon after we had our 2 kids. We use to eat out all the time and have plenty of money. We drop $1000 a month on daycare and preschool alone and that exceedes our mortgage payment. The cost of having a kid "At the hip and trendy hospital" ran 16K and 18K respectively and I had to foot $2k out of pocket for what insurance did not cover. Add that with higher water, gas, homeowner insurance, electricity and fuel bills makes for a dangerous cocktail.

Overall I can't bitch, but I know A LOT of families close to bankrupcy.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'G')ood find Spec,

Speaking from the middle it's getting tougher. The wife and I outgrew our material consuption bug soon after we had our 2 kids. We use to eat out all the time and have plenty of money. We drop $1000 a month on daycare and preschool alone and that exceedes our mortgage payment. The cost of having a kid "At the hip and trendy hospital" ran 16K and 18K respectively and I had to foot $2k out of pocket for what insurance did not cover. Add that with higher water, gas, homeowner insurance, electricity and fuel bills makes for a dangerous cocktail.

Overall I can't bitch, but I know A LOT of families close to bankrupcy.

[Dukat_Reloaded]

Wow Specop, I didn't realise you had it so bad, I do remember 9 months ago you were touting off how cool you were driving a SUV thou. Large cars, Large houses with large morgages catch up with you as they are not postitive finanical wealth creating assets, they are finanical money pits.

[Novus]

You really have to go back two generations to see how far things have truely fallen for the middle class in America. This study only looks at families going back to the 1970s when things were already getting bad with the first oil crisis. Look back to the 1950s and early 60s when one income with zero college and maybe not even a highschool diploma could get you a job for life, enough income to own a new house in the burbs, a car, and good two week vacation plus the freedom to have as many kids as you wanted and put everyone of them through college. Those years were the peak of per-capita energy use as said in the Oldavi theory.

Think about it. We are better educated, harder working, and have all this great technology and yet the world seems to be falling apart for the American middle class. The first hit was in the 1970s with oil the crisis and women suddenly had to enter the workforce to keep lifesytles up. Per-capita energy declined through the 70s and 80s leading to massive debts both public and private. Even the so called prosperous 90s saw record credit card debt and bankrupcy rates unheard of in the past generation. Now the warnign signs are becoming more and more dire. Grown adults with children are having to move back in with their parents because of out of controll living expenses. Per-capita energy is plunging and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Very shortly the middle class will collapse into poverty and eventually even basic needs will go unmet leading to lower life expectancy and eventual mass dieoff.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dukat_Reloaded', 'W')ow Specop, I didn't realise you had it so bad, I do remember 9 months ago you were touting off how cool you were driving a SUV thou. Large cars, Large houses with large morgages catch up with you as they are not postitive finanical wealth creating assets, they are finanical money pits.

[DesertBear2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', 'L')ook back to the 1950s and early 60s when one income with zero college and maybe not even a highschool diploma could get you a job for life, enough income to own a new house in the burbs, a car, and good two week vacation plus the freedom to have as many kids as you wanted and put everyone of them through college.

[firestarter]

DesertBear2,

Well said.

There's a lot of blame to go around.

[mekrob]

Blame to go around? I don't think that's his point. It seemed more like older generations didn't need these common appliances and thus they were better off. Life was much simpler.

[thor]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', '
')Think about it. We are better educated, harder working, and have all this great technology and yet the world seems to be falling apart for the American middle class.

[firestarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mekrob', 'B')lame to go around? I don't think that's his point. It seemed more like older generations didn't need these common appliances and thus they were better off. Life was much simpler.

[mekrob]

Well maybe that's because no one really needs a humanities degree. But engineering, physics, math, computer science, those are paid pretty well. Needed jobs get paid well. Be a translator in Iraq and you'll earn 120 to 150 grand (80k of which is not taxed).

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mekrob', 'B')lame to go around? I don't think that's his point. It seemed more like older generations didn't need these common appliances and thus they were better off. Life was much simpler.

[firestarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thor', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', '
')Think about it. We are better educated, harder working, and have all this great technology and yet the world seems to be falling apart for the American middle class.

[horsestoaster]

My father-in-law started with Ford at 16(also got married then too).He worked for them 35 years still retired a youg man and has a kickass retirement deal.They always had a new car for his wife and a new truck for him.They raised 4 kids and showed horses too.My mother-in-law only worked because she hated being home with her kids and had a great mother-in-law to take care of them.Now his new wife has him installing carpet so she can have the big house-only him & her there but gotta have it.A house in Florida and an RV to drive there with.The man is 72 and doomed by this consumerism.As far as the 60's retro post-hey that's MY childhood!My folks only paid cash,even for cars.It took awhile,but I have adopted their wisdom.If our cars are from the last decade,we're happy.We have a small house in the country with some land and our payment is less than most people's new car payment.I don't give a damn if you want to look at me in my crunchy Honda from atop your SUV.I'm laughing all the way to the bank...

[Revi]

We're doing ok, because my wife and I are both cheapskates who are used to living on very little, but lately I have begun to see that this whole peak oil thing is not an abstract concept anymore. I went to find out what the lock in price is going to be for next year's heating oil. They told me $2.70 a gallon. Ouch! We are going to have to pay it, but there goes any possibility of any more improvements this year. We fixed the chimney and are going to insulate some more, but this is all we can do.

Preparation time for peak oil is almost over. It is worrisome.

Everything we have done so far is looking like a great move, in retrospect. We may stop eating out so much, because the budget won't budge. Despite planning and living simply we may not be able to make ends meet soon. Us middle class people are now in for it.

[Revi]

Here's what we did to cut our expenses and save energy over the past few years:

http://www.msad54.org/sahs/appliedarts/ ... /index.htm

Click on the pics for more info. It's the ways we have figured out of keeping our middle class ship afloat.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', '
')No, what killed me was a voluntary paycut I took. We estimate it was around 15k a year for the paycut, give or take a few k. Pretty sizeable.
That said, that is the EXACT reason I didnt take the biggest damned home loan I could find. We knew in time we would work back from the paycut, and we nearly have. But in those few months before we caught back up...Ouch.
You fall behind one month on bills and it takes 3 months to catch back up.

[nero]

In the initial article it said that income rose by 75% but that taxes rose by only 38%. That sounds like lower taxes not higher taxes.

I believe the reason why we see these monster homes nowadays is because people are looking at their homes as tax sheltered investments. It hasn't got so much to do with over consumption as it does with the lack of better investment opportunities.

Similarly with investing in education, the decrease in the return on an investment in your own education is because everyone else is doing it as well. Why is everyone else also investing in education? because they don't see better investment opportunites. Getting a secure position through high educational achievement is like investing in bonds. Some of these high quality educational bonds return a secure and consistent return (eg. doctor or lawyer). When other investments are deemed overvalued an investment in education to capture one of these coveted positions looks like a good option. Everyone then invests in education and the laws of supply and demand increase the price (in years of education) required to purchase one of these secure positions. An example of this is how family medicine has become a specialization requiring additional training and how nursing now requires a university degree. Sure a new nurse has more formal education now but is she a more skilled nurse than she would have been if she had spent those 4 years working full time in a real hospital? I doubt it. The cost of entry into the profession has simply risen.

These two investments, houses and education are two of the three main ways people invest. The third way people invest is by having children, ( only the very wealthy have a significant portion of their real assets in the capital markets.) so has the return on having children decreased as well?

[thuja]

The middle class hasn't begun to feel the true pain of what is to come. Yes we are contending with high gas, health care, mortgage and tuition costs. But as the decline of oil really kicks in, we will have to start dealing with food costs skyrocketing.

You can pare down your other fossil fuel consuming habits but you have to eat. We will be forced to buy expensive food at the cost of not spending on other things such as retirement, medical care, luxuries, and then eventually essentials such as utilities, clothing, mortgage.

The poor and the highly leveraged already deal with this situation, and when they max the credit cards and have no where left to go, game over. Bankruptcy, foreclosure, etc.

So watch as we start pouring money into ethanol, making the price of corn and sugar go up dramatically. And watch as higher gas prices increase the price of fertilizer, transportation of goods, etc. Watch as global warming leads to decreased arable land for growing crops. And then watch as the bread, milk and eggs you buy start to go up and up and up.

Gasoline prices are the shocking wake up but food prices will be the cold water splashed in your face as you try to go back to sleep.