The feelings reflected here haven't even come close to making their full impact on the Presidential race. I expect that they will before November of 2008, and I don't think any candidate in either party is really prepared for it.

And yet... just today, David Brooks runs a column citing a Pew survey claiming that 76% of Americans are "satisfied with their family income." What's going on?

What Clara said.

Brooks is advising somebody, but it ain't the Dem candidate:
"In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt could launch the New Deal because voters wanted to change the country and their own lives. But today, people want the government to change so their own lives can stay the same. Voters don’t want to be transformed; they want to be defended."

Yes. If Obama was running on this, he would be kicking Hillary to the curb. John Edwards is trying, but just can't get any traction with it. The Swift Boaters have too successfully boxed him in as a rich white hypocrite.

Uh yeah they almost attacked the moderator! I think the haves and the lucky few not yet affected by the war on the middle and working classes honestly don't get it, they are so insulated from the ill winds blowing.

Gene Wiengarten the Washington Post humorist got an earful the other week in his chat when he advised someone asking for career advice to, "Just do what you love and everything will fall into place like it did for me." Boy oh boy did many chime in to tell him that the world isn't like that anymore....

"In the focus groups, we handed people a page of positive facts about the economy - and we nearly had to rescue the moderator from the disbelieving and angry participants"

"It is hard to underestimate the power of a Democratic message that simply recognizes the economic realities that are very real for these voters."

Love the Greenberg poll report anecdotes.

"Republican voters are in their own world, focused almost exclusively on the decline of morals and family values, though independents mention this frequently...But for the 70 percent of voters who want change..."

When Bill Clinton left office, the petro was 20 dollars, today it costs 100 dollars to buy one. It is all about petro and gas stuff. Unless we can get it down to managable level, the economy will crash soon. Bush has pumped so much omney into the stock market and that has kept the economy going.

Completely agree with Clara. I was going to say just that, but she got in ahead of me.
" American voters are generally happy with their own lives. Eighty-six percent of Americans say they are content with their jobs, according to the General Social Survey. Seventy-six percent of Americans say they are satisfied with their family income, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Sixty-two percent of Americans expect their personal situation to get better over the next five years, according to a Harris Poll, compared with only 7 percent who expect it to get worse. Researchers from Pew found that 65 percent of Americans are satisfied over all with their own lives — one of the highest rates of personal satisfaction in the world today."

These numbers aren't just a different magnitude, they're telling a completely different story.

*

The drop in Consumer Confidence looks significant to me. The drop in average home prices, less so. A drop of under 5% after years of big gains is not that big a deal.

When projecting the economy, investors put their money where their mouth is. The investors remain pretty optimistic, as the 1-year Dow Jones Industrial Average shows: http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1:symbol=^dji;range=1y;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=undefined

We live in a la-la land in which economic fundamentals have been abandoned for the gambler's optimism of tax breaks and borrowing(Lemme borrow some more money, China. Just one more tax break and my ship's coming home. I feel it.), harebrained economic theories like free trade and contempt for manufacturing, massive immigration driving down wages, oil gluttony, Deficit attention disorder in Congress, etc.

Wrong track, wrong track, wrong track.

Luther, that would be distinguished from the tech stock bubble of 1996 to 2000 how?

Uh yeah they almost attacked the moderator! I think the haves and the lucky few not yet affected by the war on the middle and working classes honestly don't get it, they are so insulated from the ill winds blowing.

There's a reason I'm dressing as a tricoteuse this Halloween.

Well, that, and I wanted a Halloween costume I could knit in. But I'll have my Marie Antoinette Action Figure (with head-popping action!) in my pocket if anyone doesn't get the point.

Get the red flags ready, set up the barricades and let's have a chorus of the Internationale!

Oh, it's much too late for that nicey-nice Communist stuff. It's time for a round or two of the Ca Ira. Sing it if you know it!

(Why, no, Halloween doesn't make me morbid. Why do you ask?)

All that's needed now is for a Huey-Long-type figure to step forward and focus all this angry energy.

Anecdotes are great for what they are, but you still need median income, inflation stats, and income distribution measures.

You could just as easily collect a bunch of silicon valley code monkeys and hear them talk about the 120k/year they're pulling down.

Or a bunch of I-bank analysts who gripe over their measly 150k-300k, while their bosses pull in a million!

Remember that those Silicon Valley programmers pulling down 120K are mere serfs if they're supporting a family. 80K per year in the Bay Area for a family of four buys you basic survival with no vacations or extras. 120K buys you little extras if you pretend like it's 1975. We live in a vastly over-valued house in a working-class neighborhood whose schools are sub-par; we have our kids in the public schools but are considering scrambling for the tuition to spring one of them who is desperately unhappy. We usually eat at home. We don't have cable. We only have one cel phone in the house and our two cars are vintage 1990 and 1998, respectively (but paid for). Our lone tv is years old and the size of a microwave. We don't use credit cards to buy "extras." We also look pretty shabby for people who make a six figure income.

Please remember the reality of prices in the Bay Area before you sneer at programmers complaining about 120K. 120K here = 75K or less in Atlanta, 60K in Greensboro or similar.

Brooks and his polls. As I remember Brooks said that most people wanted Libby out of jail - but it was lie, as WP pointed out in poll about the same time, even most conservative voters WANTED Libby to STAY in a jail.

I've noticed that Brooks just makes shit up too. We talk about George Will or Broder, but they don't ramrod their crediblity like Brooks has been doing it lately. The guy is turning into male verison of Ann Coulter, slobbering, radical and silly.

And yet... just today, David Brooks runs a column citing a Pew survey claiming that 76% of Americans are "satisfied with their family income." What's going on?

They ask those questions regularly through good economic times and bad, booms and recessions, and they always get that same two-thirds to three-fourths answer curve.

The contradiction stems, most likely, from the way the questions are worded and how people react when a stranger asks them about such a personal issue point-blank, in the midst of a lot of less personal questions. People in general want to sound optimistic when talking to outsiders and, for some reason, this kind of question triggers their defenses.

At this point, the pollsters should know enough to use some other kind of inquiry to get a better impression of the level of popular frustration, but they never learn. The only use that particular kind of question has is to provide cover for the politicians currently being blamed for the state of the economy. No matter how bad things get, you can count on 70% or so of those responding more or less liking their life and expecting it to get better in five years.

After all, how unlucky or depressed would you have to be to expect things to get measurably WORSE in five years?

The working people who live two paydays from the street are those unable to say "No" to self-indulgence if they've been working four or more years. Four years of saving 5% of your gross income would be enough to build a two-month cushion even if you otherwise lived right at the edge of spending every other dollar. People with education at the college level have no excuses. They are smart enough to know better and smart enough to do something about it.

Yeah, self indulgence, like heat. And oh oh oh,tv, what an incredible fucking luxury. And hey, look, there were some unexpected costs - like the spike in food prices, or a health issue, or etc. - and oh well, 3 years of saving 5% go bye-bye-bye.

Yay, America, where working folk can save for small emergencies if they want to sit in a cold room staring at the wall.

Ah, Kevin.

So you round up a few low class losers who have can't-do attitudes, you let them whine (which is all they're good for) and you call that a poll.

Some people are always going to try to milk the system, rather than working an honest day's job for an honest day's pay. Sad fact of the matter. You can blame liberalism and socialism for encouraging that. That never existed before the New Deal, and that's sad.

Yes, I'm sure people living on the edge are there because they own an inexpensive TV or pay for utilities. It must have nothing at all to do with major costs like shelter, and making deliberate choices between maxing out what one can afford and living just a fraction less expensively. And all those stories about consumers who unwisely used the equity in their homes to feed their indulgences and consume more stuff must just be rumours.

Sadly no choices about reducing the size of the military and none about our flawed foreign policies. These are the real problems facing the Republic.

Luther, that would be distinguished from the tech stock bubble of 1996 to 2000 how? Posted by: y81

Believe it or not, more people own houses (and owe mortgages)now than owned internet stock in 2000.

Based on this report, I'm surprised that John Edwards isn't getting more attention, and I'm surprised once again by the support for Hillary.

I wonder if Americans are getting wise to conservative swiftboat tactics. People want change, they want government that addresses the needs of the middle class, etc, but unless a candidate can neutralize the swiftboat crowd, the specifics of what he or she supports doesn't matter. Hillary strikes everyone as better prepared to play that kind of hardball.

And yet... just today, David Brooks runs a column citing a Pew survey claiming that 76% of Americans are "satisfied with their family income." What's going on?

I went and checked the Pew site and I didn't find Brooks' statistic. I did find this, in the latest survey:

"Americans are divided when it comes to assessing their personal finances. However, people's views of their personal finances are more positive than their opinions of the national economy.

Half of Americans say their personal finances are fair or poor, virtually matched by the 48% who say their finances are good or excellent."

Considerably less than Brooks' figure!

Unfortunately I don't have the details, but I believe that a huge number of Americans believe that they are affluent. Something like 30% think that they are in the top 5%. This could account for the contradiction between perception and reality -- especially when people are consulted about abstract issues versus food on the table.

"Yes, I'm sure people living on the edge are there because they own an inexpensive TV or pay for utilities. It must have nothing at all to do with major costs like shelter"

Well, I assumed you weren't begrudging working Americans a roof over their head. Silly me!

Everybody knows the trick about stuffing newspapers between your clothes and your old threadbare jacket to make a kind of low-budget insulation, right? Also, numerous dining establishments (of the breakfast/diner persuasion) have free jam and jelly packets - sugar and calories! - while several ketchup packets mixed w/ hot water, salt & pepper produce a kind of tomato soup-like product. Important hints for VRWC's (and egbert's) America.

Four years of saving 5% of your gross income would be enough to build a two-month cushion even if you otherwise lived right at the edge of spending every other dollar.

And all those stories about consumers who unwisely used the equity in their homes to feed their indulgences and consume more stuff must just be rumours.

And where would the economy be, after the shock of 9/11? Didn't you get the memo from President Bush?
In order to preserve our way of life, people need to get out there and shop! It sure as hell hasn't been the investor class that's driven consumer spending - it's been the hundreds of millions of us proles that have kept the economy afloat.

Why does VRWC hate America?

So you round up a few low class losers who have can't-do attitudes, you let them whine (which is all they're good for) and you call that a poll.

eggie, I'm going to quote something, and I want you to take it back to your masters to mull over its implications.

A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Bonus:

The number of guns owned by civilians in the United States is between 238 million and 276 million, making country of 268 million people
the most armed in the world, the study by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva said.

Get the red flags ready, set up the barricades and let's have a chorus of the Internationale! The time for our liberation is near!

Once again the ridiculous obsession with Communism of the John Birch Society -- er, the modern Republican Party -- rears its silly head.

Meanwhile, I think it's cute that "ex-liberal" resumes the pretense of being an honest commentator, as if what he considers "significant" isn't rightly dismissed as the partisan propaganda of a dishonest neocon tool -- but I repeat myself.

You gotta love, though, the none-too-subtle insult of "ex-liberal" refusing to create a hyperlink, though he's shown himself capable of doing so.

Why the moderator(s) tolerate "ex-liberal" pissing on the floor in here and not mhr is a mystery.

There's no excuse for having to work two or three jobs! If those people would just have rich parents, get an MBA, become Vice President of Something at some Wall Street firm, vote Republican, and speculate in multi-million-dollar real estate, they wouldn't be such losers! Geez, I'm tired of you liberal whiners.

Haven't you heard? The Core-Core Inflation rate (that excludes everything) is 0%! The percentage of people with jobs who are also not unemployed is 100%! More Americans than ever before own credit cards! And the dollar is still the world's coolest-looking currency!

If you read the whole report you get the impression that Americans are angry. They are angry because the status quo serves the rich and the politicians are remote from the needs of everyday Americans. Since the late 80's politicians have been blaming the decline in middle class security on the blacks, and welfare queens, and immorality and now immigrants with some success. Tax cuts and the flimflam of laissez-faire also worked for a time but the bamboozle has yielded, as predicted, more insecurity for wage earners. The end is near for these low cost placebo distractions. If the politicians do not respond to the rejection of anti-middle class status quo, the right wingers knew the people wouldn't like what they had in store so they achieve their goals by stealth, in a generation we will have a real revolution on the order of the New Deal. The discontent in the blogosphere is just laying the foundation for political and economic change.

More good economic news today from AP:

The economy picked up speed in the summer, growing at a brisk 3.9 percent pace, the fastest in 1½ years and an impressive performance even as a credit crunch plunged the housing market deeper into turmoil.

The latest snapshot of the country’s economic health, released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday, suggested that the economy is demonstrating much resilience and thus far holding up well to the strains in the housing and credit markets, which had intensified during the third quarter and rocked Wall Street.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21558862/

>If no one in your family happened to suffer a serious illness or accident, or had to repair or purchase a vehicle to get to work, just to name a few of the more financially crippling events that happen to ordinary people every day.

I'm sure those things happen to some families, but if your excuse for not setting aside a modest sum - 2 to 6 months worth of your routine expenses, depending on how secure you think your livelihood is - in a non-volatile investment vehicle to remove that "two paydays from the street" threat is that you figure you're just going to have a financial crisis one day anyways, so why not live large now, you're not in the half or two-thirds of all people with common sense enough to know better and my admonition doesn't apply to you.

VRWC

if your excuse ...

If my grandma had balls she'd be my gramps.

I haven't seen a strawman that grand since the Wizard of Oz. I wonder if "Tinman" on the scifi channel will match it?

I sure hope for your sake you're a shill because if you aren't you are incredibly ignorant.

Some people are always going to try to milk the system, rather than working an honest day's job for an honest day's pay.

Exactly. Look at the Bush crime family.

"I sure hope for your sake you're a shill"
Well, he is the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy - what can you expect?

Anyway, Vasty, the point is that a) even when saving that much is a reasonable possiblity, we're not talking a "two month cushion" in many cases, we're talking a one-incident cushion. We're not saying, this is why one shouldn't save if at all possible -one certainly should! - we're saying that you're wildly overestimating how far that stretches. And in other cases (we note that you specified of gross pay, ha) it's simply not possible, or only possible in months when there aren't any costs above the usual.

Put aside half a year's expenses? Oh my.

I think the neo-con lickers make a point that should be used by poor people. Stop spending money on anything but the bare necessities. This will hurt the corporations who exploit them and poor people, all people, are really going to need that bit of savings when the economy really stalls and inflation hits at the same time. W. Bush and Giuliani want consumers to keep consuming to drive the economy. That should be a signal to all of us to stop buying.

"the point is that a) even when saving that much is a reasonable possiblity"

Which it is not, to all too many people in the U.S., something that VRWC cheerfully ignores.

vrwc: or pay for utilities.

electric utility ppl in pa. has presented a plan to ease the effect of when rate caps come off after deregulation in 2009..

average 6.5% increases every year...for 5-years because rates will jump at least 30% when caps come off...

ask anyone in maryland what its like to pay more than 1/3 more for the same electricity when they deregulated...

and of course...factor in...

a 400% jump in the price of oil....and its trickle down..

barrel of oil 1/20/01: $22.50

barrel of oil 10/30/07 $90.53

oh...and your health insuarance co-pay jumped again...

and don't forget...the national savings rate for 2005 and 2006 were negative..

the last time that happened?

the great depression..

gop: happy days are here again...

lol

>Put aside half a year's expenses? Oh my.

Some people make excuses, and some find solutions. I made choices to ensure my paycheck exceeds my monthly usage. I don't have all the toys of my peers. Now I have assets and they have debts. Too bad, so sad.

VRWC, really I just cannot take anyone seriously who has a mail link of "black@helicopters.com".
Your times for posting preclude the obvious: that you are some school-age child playing hooky. Therefore the obvious answer is that you are a smug, supercilious charletan. You also exhibit an extreme lack of knowledge concerning the economy of the United States; viz. your statement about setting aside 5% of your gross income to provide for a two month's "cushion". At $10 an hour that would equal $80 out of one's take-home, which would certainly be less than $300 a week after taxes and health insurance.
Now, tell me what sort of flea-bitten, rat-infested hell-hole would be available for $300 a month? Oh, just pay more, then? OK, now how do you pay for food, utilities, clothes and gasoline if your rent is more than $300?
If you would really like a learning experience, I would suggest that you return Mommy and Daddy's credit card, get a job and see what it's like to earn your own living.
Good luck (you'll need it).

vrwc: Some people make excuses, and some find solutions.

some ignore reality...

how's that working out?

oh right...

34% say they believe in ghosts and UFO's - AP/Ipsos 10/25/07

31% GWB job approval - AP/Ipsos 10/03/07

update....

Barrel of Oil - 1/20/2001: $22.50

Barrel of Oil - 10/31/2007: $94.53

"I made choices to ensure my paycheck exceeds my monthly usage. I don't have all the toys of my peers. "

Ok, perhaps we're being unfair. Can you discuss these choices in detail (to the extent you're comfortable doing so)? That way we can judge how relevant your claims are, or if we're even talking about the same thing, the same groups.

Another aspect is - we shouldn't forget that for the last ~3 generations we've been told that we are consumers, and that happiness comes from consumption. No, of course that doesn't make personal responsibility, prudence, and planning any less necessary -but it's not like we've got a level playing field here; vast amounts of money and effort and constantly flowing into more effective ways to get folks to buy stuff. But to be honest, a lot of folks just don't have that much money left over to play with.

>your statement about setting aside 5% of your gross income to provide for a two month's "cushion".

I wrote: "Four years of saving 5% of your gross income would be enough to build a two-month cushion even if you otherwise lived right at the edge of spending every other dollar."

The underlying assumption is that you are a working person supporting yourself (and perhaps a family), not just earning part-time scratch and looking to move out of your parents basement.

5% of your gross over four years is 10.4 weeks' worth of your gross pay. By a "two-month" cushion I mean enough money to pay your routine weekly necessary expenses for 8 weeks. Obviously 10.4 weeks of your pre-tax income exceeds 8 weeks of your after-tax expenses, unless you are unsustainably "supporting yourself" by extending further on a line of credit every two weeks because you spend more than your after-tax income.

Really, all you need to do is take your after-tax income - say it is "Y" - and measure your necessary expenditures - say "X" - and then figure out how to make Y > X to build up a fund to cover whatever length of time you think it would take you to find a new job. The point of the fund isn't to cover a catastrophic emergency; it's to give financial security against temporary unemployment (layoff or unfunded absence of only a few weeks).

>Can you discuss these choices in detail (to the extent you're comfortable doing so)?

Starting out in life it was fewer restaurant meals, movie tickets, prepared meals from grocery stores, and driving a beater while my peers were entertaining themselves more, too lazy to cook from scratch, and enjoying the now slightly-used autos they bought new with downpayments out of their student loans while the dealers were offering low financing rates to students.

Later in life it meant upgrading from beater to only a moderately used car while others still sought newer models, and still observing the original principles.

Lately it has meant not buying the trappings of middle class indulgence: motorcycles, recreational equipment, outfitting a full workshop, and buying a modest home rather than whatever I could find with the maximum mortgage a bank would give me. I can afford to go out pretty much as often as I would like now, but I don't want to go out as often as I used to.

Basically, the idea is to go through life not trying to keep up with the Joneses. Common sense. My actual personal savings target is significantly higher than 5%, but I use 5% as an example because it is enough to build up a fund to cover short-term interruptions in income and shouldn't sound unattainable. However, it doesn't surprise me that many people find the suggestion of setting aside 5% unreasonable, since I know so many people spending to the limits of their incomes and trading home equity for consumption. Please remember that I don't level criticism against those who truly don't have a lot of raw intellectual horsepower and education; I have no sympathy for the whining of those smart enough to know better and do better.

I figure if you consider yourself smart and informed enough to debate social and political policy, you should be smart enough to reduce risks in your personal affairs.

"Some people make excuses, and some find solutions"

And some people simply ignore reality, smugly comfortable in their own ignorance.

Well, what's your reality then, Paul? Lazy, weak-willed, or just not bright enough to deal with personal finances?