Ten years have passed since the 2008 economic crisis began, usually designated by the 9/15/2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. The recovery and accompanying bull market, stock market bubble that began on March 2009, provide an occasion to reflect on how well or poorly people have done and these include the non-wealthy whose status is typically obscured by typical MSM reporting.
In this post-industrial or service economy, the long-term trend has been welfare for the wealthy, the 1%, and austerity for the non-wealthy 99%. The statistics given on our “healthy growing economy” paint a rosey hue on reality. Before the 2008 meltdown, the U.S. employment/population ratio was 63.3%. The current ratio is 60.3%. The official unemployment figure is 3.9%, which is determined by dividing the number of jobless people who are looking for work by the total labor force—defined as all those people working or actively looking for work. In August that was 3.9 percent. If you factor in underemployed workers, those working less than full time not by choice, “discouraged” workers, those marginally attached — who would work but feel they can’t find a job — that adds about 12.3 million people to the unemployed total. This raises the rate of unemployed to 7.6 percent. The number of jobs advertised by employers and the number of workers who quit reached record highs in July 2018. The number of unfilled positions increased 1.7%, to 6.9 million, while the number of employees deciding to leave rose 3%, to 3.58 million.
The cornerstone of business and finance news is stock market performance, which is intended to represent the status of the economy as a whole, rather than the well-being of those who can afford a big stock portfolio. Since the 2008 crash, the S&P 500 has grown 3,315% whereas average wages have grown an annual average of 2.03%. The vast majority of Americans, the bottom 80% in income, own 6.7% of all stocks. The top 10% own 84% and the next 10% own 9.3%. Contrast this salient real fact with the claims of Trickle Down economics.
Since the major recession of 2008, largely attributed to excessive mortgage debt, consumer debt is even worse 10 years later. The debt has shifted from mortgage to auto loans and student loans. The continued reliance on debt reflects how corporate profits tend to flow upward to the wealthy rather than downward to middle or low income workers. Auto loans rose by 42% over the past ten years, from $798 billion to $1.13 trillion, with the average loan 69.5 months (over 5.75 years). About 1/4 of auto loans are to people with subprime or deep-subprime credit ratings. Student loans have skyrocketed to $1.53 trillion from 627 billion in 2008. There are 44 million student borrowers who owe an average of $37,000. Overall consumer debt is $13.95 trillion, 4.7% higher than in 2008, despite the fact of a slight reduction in mortgage debt. This debt averages out to $42,660 for each American. This dismal state of indebtedness does not factor into typical acclamations of the strong economy as reported by the mainstream media.
The less than rosey reality of economic status for the non-wealthy is intentionally hidden by business reporting for the simple reason to make people think they are doing better than they really are. Big powerful corporations own the mainstream media and prefer to have content workers over discontented ones. The economic system for decades has been plutocratically driven, a series of bubbles, fed by globalization, being able to offshore jobs and decrease wages and thereby boost profits. The claims provided by trickle down economics have proved to be false with real median male wages lower than they were in 1975. The increased participation by women in the workforce facilitates the use of household income as a statistic. The inclusion of more two-breadwinner households offsets the fact that mens’ incomes do not keep pace with inflation and more women must work to offset this fact. Clearly, the “American Dream” of decades past has deteriorated, is less possible, less often achieved than it was 40 years ago. Clearly plutocracy is both the economic and governmental system, rather than democracy. The increasing struggles of average non-wealthy Americans to merely “get by”, pay monthly bills, let alone aspire to achieving loftier career goals, are direct results of a continual dismantling of democracy by the plutocracy. Profits come from paying people less, either here or outside the U.S., and these flow upwards, not downwards, as the facts I state here demonstrate.
SOURCES:
http://www.smartbrief.com/branded/635D2192-7CCE-4A2F-B6DB-0EC8232131AD/920EB83B-7831-4239-9BCD-8D5302D9A863
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2016/09/14/almost-six-million-unfilled-jobs-in-america-question-is-why
read:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-5295767/Worlds-richest-gained-82-new-wealth-2017-Oxfam-report-shows.html
https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2018/sep/18/ro-khanna/what-percentage-americans-own-stocks/
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-94-million-americans-out-of-labor-force-in-speech-to-congress-2017-2
U.S. economy: Rosy for the rich, grim for workers and poor people
https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/mutualfunds/10-years-later-how-has-americas-consumer-debt-changed-since-the-financial-crisis/ar-AAAvtvQ
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student-loan-debt-statistics-2018/#5eb6e5837310