Wealth in the U.S. - An Overview

[jerome len]

When I was a kid my Dad was a skilled worker and we lived in an 800 square ft home....2 bedrooms, one bath for 4 people. And, our whole neighborhood was the same and we were happy......one car, one TV, one dinner out each month. And we were middle class. Back then we had the best income, best housing, best food, best lifestyle of anyone in the world....we led following the 2nd world war.

Today we still, as a nation, have more of everything than most other countries and we think we are entitled to all of it. I have friends unemployed for two years....they don't worry.....they still have unemployment, a 1000 sq ft apartment, a nice car.....why work? And they vote.....as they should.

Other Nations look at us and envy us.....they'll work for less, they live in smaller houses, take public transportation and want our jobs. I don't blame them we are very, very lucky. But how do we keep all this up. We have to come together and come up with a solution. We can't give everyone everything and compete with the rest of the world.....I'm a little better than middle class and I don't mind paying a little more....I'm going to move into a smaller home.....eat more chicken than steak so I can live happily knowing how lucky I am.

We need to help those that need it. But I believe we lack accountability....lets stop freeloaders that take government money and then do yard work and painting for "cash"......lets get rid of waste, dishonesy and maintain a moral culture that looks down on those that want to raise taxes to give more to the unneedy.......we can fix this, all of us.....regardless of political beliefs if we work together.....I hope we can.

You can look at all the charts in the world.....I love statistics.....but it comes down to values.....culture.....leadership......like we got from Presidents Kennedy and Reagan...... this will be an interesting year.

 

[Gumby]

. . . as a matter of intellectual curiosity.

If you are really interested in the topic, I recommend John Kenneth Galbraith's book Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went. It is 37 years old, but his discussion of the history of the banking system is timeless. You will see recurrent echoes of the past in the events of today and the last few years.

 

[bondi688]

I was at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. I had a thoroughly smashing time. The American Dollar was getting over 1.9 Australian Dollar then. I am quite dismayed to note that the American dollar is getting 0.96 Australia dollar last Friday. Maybe we all need to reflect on how our country get to such sad state.

 

[JPatrick]

+1 At the same time. I have no idea how one structures a retirement investment portfolio to protect oneself from a constitutional crisis.

I suspect it is a matter of doubling down on the savings and finding a way to safeguard the stash from the many evils (such as means testing) that exist, and those still to be created.

 

[imoldernu]

RE: Galbraith... Everything I find on the subject of Debt as Asset, tracks back to the "Money: Whence it Came" book. As I was poking around looking for a shortcut to the heart of the theory, this site was referenced.
http://www.thetwofacesofmoney.com/files/money.pdf
It's a fairly easy read and goes to the heart of explaining this chart of the FRED (Federal Reserve Asset) that caught my attention in the first place.

Chart source:
Federal Reserve Economic Data - FRED - St. Louis Fed


The Khan lectures do an excellent job of explaining that the strength of the monetary policy relies on the brain trust, the infrastructure, the education, the technology and the stability of the US government. They explain in more detail the relative strength of the US in the international scene, and give support to the UN Monetary Policy of the past five years.

The steepness of the asset/debt curve still holds my interest and concern.

 

[Midpack]

So if I'm reading this very nice chart correctly, "SS and other taxes" generate about $934B in revenue, while "SS expenditures" cost about $730B.

Even if you add Medicare's $491B, the deficit of those two combined is relatively mild vs their revenue... how did they get to be the big pole in the tent?

What I'd really like to see is what the $612B vaguely mentioned as "Mandatory Other" is for. What's that?

+1 was wondering the same thing about the $612B? I suppose the big issue for SS is really fewer workers supporting more SS recipients going forward, while medicare on the other hand remains the elephant in the bathtub in terms of the big pole in the tent.

In the chart it has defense as discretionary. I don't think that is true. Defense is discretionary. But the amount we spend on it is a subject for discussion. There are some pretty big numbers in the other category of both discretionary and mandatory spending. Wish we knew the breakdown on those as well.

For those who don't have Google, Bing or any search engine and a few minutes...all the detail you could possibly want is readily available online.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

When I was a kid my Dad was a skilled worker and we lived in an 800 square ft home....2 bedrooms, one bath for 4 people. And, our whole neighborhood was the same and we were happy......one car, one TV, one dinner out each month. And we were middle class. Back then we had the best income, best housing, best food, best lifestyle of anyone in the world....we led following the 2nd world war.

Today we still, as a nation, have more of everything than most other countries and we think we are entitled to all of it. I have friends unemployed for two years....they don't worry.....they still have unemployment, a 1000 sq ft apartment, a nice car.....why work? And they vote.....as they should.

Other Nations look at us and envy us.....they'll work for less, they live in smaller houses, take public transportation and want our jobs. I don't blame them we are very, very lucky. But how do we keep all this up. We have to come together and come up with a solution. We can't give everyone everything and compete with the rest of the world.....I'm a little better than middle class and I don't mind paying a little more....I'm going to move into a smaller home.....eat more chicken than steak so I can live happily knowing how lucky I am.

We need to help those that need it. But I believe we lack accountability....lets stop freeloaders that take government money and then do yard work and painting for "cash"......lets get rid of waste, dishonesy and maintain a moral culture that looks down on those that want to raise taxes to give more to the unneedy.......we can fix this, all of us.....regardless of political beliefs if we work together.....I hope we can.

You can look at all the charts in the world.....I love statistics.....but it comes down to values.....culture.....leadership......like we got from Presidents Kennedy and Reagan...... this will be an interesting year.

We have shifted far away from the Kennedy question - "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Today it is all about "getting mine, to _____ with everyone else." This seems to be more of a survivalist attitude, the cause of which I don't know and is likely a combination of factors/events.

As for this year, it won't be that interesting. We already know what will occur. Higher taxes from the Fiscal Cliff resolution, modest entitlement reforms, modest cuts to Defense spending, and an increase in the debt ceiling by another 2-3 trillion dollars. The net-net is that everyone will be paying a little more to kick the can down the road by another 10-20 years. Washington and the American people very rarely undertake dramatic change except in the face of significant peril (e.g., a World War).