The Middle Class Financial Index

I just looked online a few moments ago ( June 5, 2009 ) and it was currently down about 19 points.  It may still end up for the day, as it has been since it hit around 6500 not all that long ago  It does not have to rise to much to crack 9000.  While analysts are giddy with delight and are into the delusion that we can all start singing., ” Let the Good Times Roll,” let me enlighten you on the latest , your government statistics are lying to you.

First of all let me enlighten you on our coin operated Congress that changed proprietors while leaving the money game in in place.  The trick has been to talk like reformers while doing no reformation.  Despite almost three trillion dollars in bailouts to Wall Street there is nothing that Geithner or anyone else has done that would prevent them from backing the economic Titanic up and bashing it back into the same Iceberg.  They say insanity is doing the same thing a second time while expecting different results but this is ridiculous.

In truth despite all the ballyhooing about the rising Dow, thanks to thirty years of Globalization it has about as much relevance to the lives of average Americans and our economic status as if you compared a high school play to Broadway.  In lieu of this economic propaganda, I have taken government statistics that are much more relevant to our status and when you are done reading the Middle Class financial averages you will also be able to decide if prosperity is just around the corner.

First of all in the first quarter of this year housing prices declined another 19.1 percent.  Since the family home is Middle Class America’s largest asset this is huge loss of wealth.  By the way, the latest mortgage crisis is that as many as 600,000 senoirs in this economy are having trouble paying their mortgages.

Just yesterday ( June 4, 2009 ) unemployment figures were released that showed the nations unemployment rate was at 9.4 percent.  That is the highest in 25 years. This would be bad enough but it is essentially a cleaned up statistic because it convieniently leaves out those who have stopped looking altogether and those who are working part- time because that is all they can get.  Add these figures to the mix and the real deal is about 16.4 percent with something on the order of 25 million Americans either out of work, no longer looking for work or underemployed.  We have lost 6 million jobs since 2007.

From March to April of this year wages went from $16.56 per hour to $16.51 per hour for a loss of five cents.  You all know gas prices are now going up sometimes that much in a single day. The Consumer price index rose 0.02 percent in April as wages fell.

You might remember that we have been told to compete in the Global economy we need to go back to school to get the high wage high tech jobs of the future.  The only problem is that 6 of the top ten jobs created required no college and the four that did required nothing higher than a bachelors degree.

I don’t want to be a nay-sayer but these things do not depict the the rosy improving future we have been hearing about.  We have done nothing about creating products that would create wealth for this nation. Economist Joseph Stegletz has already said that America has sunk to where our economy is similar to that of emerging nations ( third world country) and if he were in charge of the IMF and America came seeking a loan he would deny it because there is gross inequality in income distribution and astronomical debt that cannot be sustained.

That is not cause for breaking out the champagne.  If this really was Titanic and not a useful analogy, the operateive phrase might not be who is your broker it might be how long can you tread water.