The 1% haven't recovered either. All income levels are still under their 2007 peak. I wondered when people would start wondering about this. There's been a lot of "1% gets all the gains" thinkpieces, but no one had ever mentioned this.
"...people are being treated closer to the way that they are supposed to be treated."
The ACA was supposed to lower healthcare costs. They've actually increased. This is deeply disturbing because the "cost-saving" mechanisms weren't a fig leaf. The "experts" really thought they would work. The fact that they haven't is (or should be) very disturbing. It probably has to do with our highly-paid healthcare professionals.
Wage garnishment for unpaid student loans is a thing.
Blue model (govt-subsidized prosperity) is failing everywhere.
America needs more favelas. The past few months have seen a rise in articles exalting the virtues of downward mobility. This is one them. You're not too poor to move out of your parents' house; you're just enjoying the new trend of multi-generational living. You're not unemployed; you're an entrepreneur. You are not poor; you have been liberated from the burden of material possessions. My favorite part of this article is the last sentence indicating that this will boost middle class families. Living with your parents and grandparents in the same house while working low-paid menial jobs and helping your mom with the hairstyling business she runs out of the garage is what passes for middle class in Latin America. The fact that this is what the intelligentsia thinks that the downwardly-mobile American middle class should aspire to is depressing. People will adapt though, for example here's a millennial turning lemons into lemonade.
The robots are coming.
So is the Zika virus.
Paul Krugman goes to 11 on debt/deficits. This is going to be the theme for the next decade. We're going to spend like drunkards. China's on its fifth or so spending binge. Thanks to the ton of refugees/migrants it has to digest, Europe is going full in. Canada is already on it (I love that headline!). Japan will probably hold back and try to feed off the Western spending. The world has been awash with fake money for the past 10 years and the governments will now match that amount with real moolah. It won't work and the debt hangover won't be pretty (see Puerto Rico, 2016 bankruptcy of). It should, however, raise inflation by at least a bit resulting in a higher cost of living, Woohoo! Break out the party hats.
