Post by jeffolie on Jul 3, 2012 15:31:57 GMT -6
America's Dollar certainly is being 'debauched' subtly...most Americans do not understand the changes since 1999. Median income adjusted for govt PCE or CPI are down noticeably; plus, family income has changed even more as more children are raised by a family headed by 1 person instead of 2.
Rarely does one hear that todays's inflation rate has significantly been responsible for declining average American's lifestyles in the financial media and not at all on the main stream media news programs. Instead one hears the FED's releases and the BLS statistics that downplay the impact over the last 13 years of malaise and cultural decline.
None the less over the last 13 years average Americans have greatly suffered declining abilities to provide everything. Yes some items such as housing prices have declined since their peak, but go back to 1999 and ask how likely was it then compared to now that a child would be in a single family house raised by the child's biological parents as married plus have family wealth as a feature in the 13 year comparison. I call this screwflation for the average family comparison while omitting the obvious sucess of the upper 20% of incomes/wealth.
In part the difficulty of such comparisons is the objective other currency because the Dollar Index has changed and the euro now exists. Thus, I try to compare lifestyles of the average American child in an average family. One could compare to a metals or CRB commodities basket I suppose but that ignores technological changes and govt services changes which greatly impact lifestyles. For example, the govt feeds the poor via SNAP aka food stamps that otherwise would go hungry applying modern tech that avoids the obvious long lines of the Great Depression's soup kitchens.
Rarely does one hear that todays's inflation rate has significantly been responsible for declining average American's lifestyles in the financial media and not at all on the main stream media news programs. Instead one hears the FED's releases and the BLS statistics that downplay the impact over the last 13 years of malaise and cultural decline.
None the less over the last 13 years average Americans have greatly suffered declining abilities to provide everything. Yes some items such as housing prices have declined since their peak, but go back to 1999 and ask how likely was it then compared to now that a child would be in a single family house raised by the child's biological parents as married plus have family wealth as a feature in the 13 year comparison. I call this screwflation for the average family comparison while omitting the obvious sucess of the upper 20% of incomes/wealth.
In part the difficulty of such comparisons is the objective other currency because the Dollar Index has changed and the euro now exists. Thus, I try to compare lifestyles of the average American child in an average family. One could compare to a metals or CRB commodities basket I suppose but that ignores technological changes and govt services changes which greatly impact lifestyles. For example, the govt feeds the poor via SNAP aka food stamps that otherwise would go hungry applying modern tech that avoids the obvious long lines of the Great Depression's soup kitchens.