by Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
The middle class in the United States has been steadily shrinking, and the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us has grown to absurd proportions. But it wasn’t always this way. When I was growing up in the 1980s, it seemed like almost everyone was middle class. Of course there were wealthy people and poor people in the 1980s too, but the vast majority of the population was comfortably somewhere in the middle. Sadly, things have changed so much since that time. Today, most of the people that I know are struggling. According to a report that was just released, in all 50 states it now takes an income of more than $100,000 in order for a family of four to live “the American Dream”…
A new report from GOBankingRates used that framework to analyze how much money a family of two adults and two children would need in each state to own a home, a car and a pet. The report tallied estimated annual essential expenses for such a family and then doubled that figure.
As you know by now, this weekend Iran attacked Israel with a combination of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. While we don’t have the exact number, reports indicate that the attack included about 300 drones and missiles in all.
When the barbarian king Rugila died in the year 434 AD, Roman Emperor Theodosius II likely rejoiced that his mortal enemy was no more.
Rather than attempt to evade Caesar’s reach, a better strategy might be to ‘go gray’: blend in, appear average.
The year 2015 was not long ago, and yet the entire world economy has changed. Central banks mismanaged monetary policy through arbitrarily low interest rates and continuous printing to appease the bigger issue—fiscal policy. Fiscal policies are all but nonexistent in most of the modern world, and government spending has become one of the largest threats to the global economy. The COVID lockdown pushed these issues into overdrive, and world leaders usurped power that they have refused to relinquish.
Wondering why Mike Johnson flipped on warrantless spying after a briefing by the so-called intelligence agencies?
Retail sales by major segment: huge winners (on top: ecommerce and general merchandise retailers), and some big losers.
Nearly 20 years ago when I started my work in the independent media the common mantra among my peers was noting the existence of the “false left/right paradigm” – The idea that Democrats and Republicans were essentially the same and were working towards the same exact authoritarian goals. This was before the Ron Paul movement and the libertarian/patriot shift within conservative circles when Neocons (fake conservatives) dominated all Republican discourse.
House Speaker Mike Johnson betrayed liberty and the Constitution by making a full-court press to get a “clean” reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Act through the House.
As Tax Day passes on Monday, the cost of illegal immigration to American taxpayers has hit an unprecedented level on President Joe Biden’s watch.
In this week’s The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman contextualize Iran’s retaliatory strike against Israel before bemoaning the recent vote in Congress on the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).