Cost Of Living

Pocketbook Pain: The Rapidly Rising Cost Of Living Is Absolutely Killing The Middle Class In America

Pain In The WalletAll over America, the middle class is dying and poverty is on the rise.  One of the primary reasons for this is the rapidly rising cost of living in the United States.  The cost of just about everything that average families shell out money for on a regular basis – food, rent, health insurance, etc. – is rising much faster than wages are.  In a previous article I noted that the federal poverty level for a family of five is $28,410, but 51 percent of all American workers are making less than $30,000 a year at this point.  We have seen an explosion in the number of people in this country that are considered to be “the working poor” and it gets worse with each passing year. (Read More...)

Money Trouble Ahead: 15 Indications That Bad Times Are About To Hit The U.S. Economy

2011 is shaping up to be a really bad year for the U.S. economy. There are all kinds of indications that big trouble is ahead. So far financial markets are weathering all of the chaos around the world fairly well, but just as there were huge flashing warning signs before the 2008 financial crisis there are also huge flashing warning signs now.  The price of oil is soaring, the U.S. housing market is experiencing huge problems, the cost of living in America recently hit a new record high and each week the globe seems to become even more unstable.  How much pounding can our fragile economic system take before it completely collapses?  As the price of oil goes even higher, it is going to cause economic growth to slow down and it is going to cause the prices of the things that we all buy at the stores to go up at the same time.  It is very likely that we are entering a period of “stagflation” similar to what we experienced in the 1970s.  This is going to cause a huge amount of money trouble for millions of American families.  Already there are vast numbers of American families that are barely making it every month.  Tens of millions of Americans are already receiving government assistance.  So what is going to happen when the next financial crash happens and we experience yet another major economic downturn? (Read More...)