He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

Mark Twain

The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it... But though labour be the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities, it is not that by which their value is commonly estimated... Every commodity, besides, is more frequently exchanged for, and thereby compared with, other commodities than with labour.

Adam Smith

This post was prompted by reading “Most Americans (51.4 percent) will live in poverty at some point before age 65.” from the Urban Institute’s, Transitioning In and Out of Poverty, http://www.bread.org/hunger/us/facts.html 

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class shrinks.

The connection between income and wealth is astounding.  CEOs in 1965 made about 24 times more than the average production worker.  In2009 they made 185 times more.  State of Working America

 

Poverty: State By State

Mississippi - 31 Per Cent

Arkansas - 27 Per Cent

Kentucky - 26 Per Cent

New Mexico - 25 Per Cent

Alabama - 25 Per Cent

Louisiana - 24 Per Cent

Tennessee - 24 Per Cent

Texas - 24 Per Cent

South Carolina - 24 Per Cent

West Virginia - 24 Per Cent

North Carolina - 23 Per Cent

Arizona - 23 Per Cent

Michigan - 23 Per Cent

Oklahoma - 22 Per Cent

Georgia - 22 Per Cent

Ohio - 22 Per Cent

Montana - 21 Per Cent

Florida - 21 Per Cent

Missouri - 21 Per Cent

Indiana - 20 Per Cent

New York - 20 Per Cent

California - 20 Per Cent

South Dakota - 19 Per Cent

Oregon - 19 Per Cent

Illinois - 19 Per Cent

Kansas - 18 Per Cent

Idaho - 18 Per Cent

Nevada - 18 Per Cent

Colorado - 17 Per Cent

Maine - 17 Per Cent

Rhode Island - 17 Per Cent

Pennsylvania - 17 Per Cent

Wisconsin - 17 Per Cent

Delaware - 16 Per Cent

Washington - 16 Per Cent

Iowa - 16 Per Cent

Nebraska - 15 Per Cent

Minnesota - 14 Per Cent

Virginia - 14 Per Cent

Hawaii - 14 Per Cent

Alaska - 13 Per Cent

Massachusetts - 13 Per Cent

New Jersey - 13 Per Cent

Vermont - 13 Per Cent

Wyoming - 13 Per Cent

North Dakota - 13 Per Cent

Connecticut - 12 Per Cent

Utah - 12 Per Cent

Maryland - 12 Per Cent

New Hampshire - 11 Per Cent

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Poverty by city

1. Detroit, MI 32.5%
2. Buffalo, NY 29.9%
3. Cincinnati, OH 27.8%
4. Cleveland, OH 27.0%
5. Miami, FL 26.9%
5. St. Louis, MO 26.8%
7. El Paso, TX 26.4%
8. Milwaukee, WI 26.2%
9. Philadelphia, PA 25.1%
10. Newark, NJ 24.2%

And for those working, productivity is higher but real wages haven’t increased.  Especially when you consider the number of two parents working in 1960 versus 2007.

Compare income with the real value of the dollar.  $1.00 in 1960 had the same purchasing power as $7.00 in 2007.  A loss of 85%.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

Coco Chanel

And for the unemployed, the prospect is worse than ever. 

The change in employment was stunning

And the duration of unemployment has been much worse than before.

Read more at http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/

I don’t care which political side you are on.  The republicrats and the demicans are just different sides of the same BS.

We are entering dark times.  The President is on vacation for 10 days while the crisis burns.  What has been tried has not worked.  Time to change course.  I think that Washington is incapable of correcting anything.  Hopefully they will stop screwing it up and I’ll still be able to retire by 65 72 75.

Lastly, check out the VIX…

Ladies and Gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts.  We are in for a stretch of turbulence.  Hang on!

“Uh, folks, we’re experiencing some moderate Godzilla-related turbulence at this time, so I’m going to go ahead and ask you to put your seatbelts back on.  When we get to 35 thousand feet, he usually does let go, so from there on out, all we have to worry about is Mothra, and, uh, we do have reports he’s tied up with Gamera and Rodan at the present time. Thank you very much.”

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde