The Death Spiral of the Middle Class in America

[SoCalDem]

Watch this video, and you will have a greater understanding of WHY it's happening.

It's about 50 minutes long, but time well spent..It uses an "appples to apples" comparison of families from 1970 to 2005 (presentation was given in June of '07 at Berkeley)

It's must-see-tv..


http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.asp?showID=12620

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net
Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America’s credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class.

.......................

Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law
Office: Hauser 200
Assistant: Carol Bateson 617/496-2024
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

Research Interests

* Empirical and Policy Work in Bankruptcy and Commercial Law
* Financially Distressed Companies
* Women, the Elderly, and the Working Poor in Bankruptcy

Subject Areas for Supervising Written Work

* Bankruptcy
* Commercial Law
* Contracts
* Empirical Studies of Legal Systems

Subject Areas for Accepting Press Inquiries

* Bankruptcy
* Business Failure
* Business/Corporations
* Consumer Debt
* Contracts
* Corporate Reorganization
* Divorce and Bankruptcy
* Environmental Law and Bankruptcy
* Families in Bankruptcy for Medical Reasons
* Health Care Economics
* International Bankruptcy
* Mass Torts and Bankruptcy
* Medical Debt and Bankruptcy
* Small Business Failure
* Transnational Insolvencies

Education

* University of Houston B.S. 1970
* Rutgers University J.D. 1976

Appointments

* Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Law, 1992
* Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, 1995

Representative Publications

* Warren, Elizabeth. "The Vanishing Middle Class" in Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream 38 (The New Press, 2007).
(Edited by John Edwards, Marion Crain, and Arne L. Kalleberg. Published in conjunction with the the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
* Warren, Elizabeth. "Service Pays: Creating Opportunities by Linking College with Public Service," 1 Harvard Law & Policy Review 127 (2007).
Full text: WWW
((with Sandy Baum and Ganesh Sitaraman))
* Warren, Elizabeth. "Congress and the Credit Industry: More Bad News for Families" in American's Second Gilded Age: Perspectives on Law and Class Difference (New York University Press, 2006).
* Warren, Elizabeth. "Vanishing Trials: The New Age of American Law," American Bankruptcy Law Journal, 2006 (forthcoming 2006).
* Warren, Elizabeth & Melissa Jacoby. "Beyond Hospital Misbehavior: An Alternative Account of Medical-Related Financial Distress," 100 Northwestern Law Review 535 (2006).
Full text: SSRN
* Warren, Elizabeth, Teresa A,. Sullivan & Jay Lawrence Westbrook. "Less Stigma or More Financial Distress: An Empirical Analysis of the Extraordinary Increase in Bankruptcy Filings," 59 Stanford Law Review 213 (2006).
Full text: WWW
((with Sullivan and Westbrook))
* Warren, Elizabeth & Amelia Warren Tyagi. All Your Worth: the Lifetime Money Plan (Simon & Schuster 2005).
Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
(Bestseller Lists: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today)
* Warren, Elizabeth. The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke (Basic 2003).
Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)

[fasttense]

1. Thanks for the link.

I love the picture on your signature line. :-)

[SoCalDem]

2. Thanks.. I love that pic too :)..n/t

[samplegirl]

3. Great Link

just finished watching it. Even though some refuse to admit that this is happening...beleive me all the way up to Wall Street is feeling the crunch.

[Perry Logan]

4. Thanks. I need all the help I can get on economic stuff.

[Tesha]

5. For me, the analysis is simple: Up until about 1990 or 1995, I had faith I'd have a job.

For me, the analysis is simple: Up until about 1990 or 1995,
I had faith I'd have a job, that I could make plans based on
that job, and that I could execute those plans and prosper,
at least a bit.

But around that time the company that Mr. Tesha and I had
spent most of our lives working for starting capsizing, and
it never righted itself, even as it did lay-off after lay-off
and divestment after divestment. (Gee, maybe lay-offs and
divestments weren't a productive strategy?) And since then,
I've *NEVER AGAIN* felt that I was on economically-sound
ground. fter he left the sinking ship, Mr. Tesha had a one-
or two-year good-run in 2000 and 2001, but since then, his
continued employment at his new employer has again been
continuously in doubt; a new round of lay-offs are now
pending at his company with the axe to fall in the next
week or three.

Stagnant salaries, inflation, and constant fears of
unemployment are no way to create a booming economy.

Tesha

[Skittles]

28. correct, Tesha

you make a very good point that many of us who have stayed employed feel like we are hanging by our fingertips off the lifeboat and any time a huge wave can hit - it's a seriously f***ed up way to live

[abelenkpe]

29. Yeah! Been like that for 10 years for me too. nt

[Tesha]

42. I'm sorry that our story is so widespread. :-( (NT)

[flashl]

6. She is the first I heard speaking on the state of Americans economy who got it.

She hit it at the beginning of the lecture, the two income household. Since that assault on the family, the encroachment worsens. Just in Dec., it was noted that in some households, to survive, EACH member need at least 2+ jobs.

[abelenkpe]

30. We have 3 plus rely on overtime. :o(

It's great for fostering close relationships with your young children.

[nashville_brook]

36. her book "The Two-Income" Trap" is wonderful -- and depressing.

i have it on the table in front of me, as i've been working on a essay jumping off from her analysis. i first heard her on Fresh Air and RAN out to buy the book.

the thing i respond to is putting the LIE to the myth that people are broke b/c they are immoral spenders. that we're broke b/c we buy too many clothes, iPods or TVs. it just isn't so -- and the part that really chaps my ass is that it's these little CHEAP expenditures that keep us placated. take away the cheap Chinese consumer goods (as is happening with our currency problems) and people might, just might decide they've had enough and can't "take it anymore."

[mia]

7. Listening to it now

Thanks for the link.
:kick:

[a kennedy]

8. I've bookmarked this for later viewing....

thanks.

[El Pinko]

9. Thanks for the excellent lecture.

:hi:

[JohnyCanuck]

10. Why is there so much debt?

Watch the video Money As Debt to find out why, also available for viewing on Google Video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

From a review by Elizabeth Kucinich:

I have worked for a long time looking into monetary reform and after 10 years, finally someone has produced a DVD entitled "Money as Debt". It is a fabulous fun yet powerful introduction to the issue of monetary reform. It's the best over view I have seen so far; the best by far. ESSENTIAL! Everyone should watch it!

The topic of DebtMoney is THE issue of our times. It forms the basis to every nation's areas of core material and spiritual concerns such as economic development, employment and environmental sustainability.

If only government officials, civil society organizations, environmental groups, unions and well meaning international development strategists trying to eradicate poverty really understood this topic... the world would be a much better place.

www.moneyasdebt.net (click on Reviews)

[NMDemDist2]

11. I've caught bits and pieces of her lectures here and there but I set up the DVR

to tape the whole thing tomorrow AM

I love UCTV

[tnlurker]

12. I'll try to watch this at home later

[physioex]

13. Excellent...

I have seen on various shows on television, but this lecture goes into far more detail. Thank You.

[dysfunctional press]

14. are you sure that carol would want her contact info on this board?

freepers lurk here.

[SoCalDem]

15. It's from the uctv/harvard website

too late for me to edit :(

[barbtries]

16. thank you

that was really informative. i wish they'd posted the Q and A as well.

[Angela Shelley]

17. Great Video, Great Insight,

Thanks SoCalDem for the link.

[mediaman007]

18. I watched and was astounded!

I am a 60 year old teacher, so this data follows my career. In fact my wife and I were at the leading edge of these issues. When we started together we paid cash for the birth of our first daughter. We had day care in the early 1970's, but it was a reasonable expense at the time. We bought our first house in 1984 and have done the refinancing thing. Even though we survived the 40 years, we were lucky that we didn't have a crisis which would have shattered our lives.

As we start retirement, we are anxiously watching our children and grandchildren, wondering if they will be able to survive in today's America.

Thanks for the video, it is much easier to understand the families that I work with now.

[SoCalDem]

19. Me too.. We married in 1970..and unfortunately we HAVE

hit some speed bumps..but we were lucky and managed to weather the storm..so far :scared:

[InkAddict]

33. Me too...We married in 1970..and unfortunately we got

sideswiped 11 years in, then got hit head-on by a drunken government on 'roids and Reagan, then crashed and burned under Top Gun Cruisin' *Co.

[ThomWV]

20. Kick - well worth the time to watch it all..

[newportdadde]

21. Very good presentation. This should be an issue both sides of the aisle look at.

[SoCalDem]

22. and it should be shown to ALL high school kids..let them know

what's ahead for them BEFORE they get into debt..and to prepare them to VOTE as soon as they turn 18..

[leftofthedial]

23. how much of this is by design?

I look at the changes and across the board--credit, savings, mortgage market, health care, education . . . I see repuke policy at the root of every problem.

[tom_paine]

24. Almost all of it.

The Elites are closing down our society and our liberty in order to prepare for the times of scarcity (Peak Oil, Global Warming, etc.) that are coming, and damned soon. It's already here in other parts of the Third World (and Amerika is now a part of that community, albeit the wealthiest part, like Saudi Arabia).

And our Rulers will be damned if their little Binkys and Fauntleroys are going to suffer a moment of privation while the rest of us are living Mad max or 1984 or whatever dystopian nightmare the Bushies have planned for our descendants and maybe us, too.

That's why the police state is so hurridly being put into place, that's why the Bushies have created VIPS, VIPR, and Infragard, along with Behavior Detection Officers and the rest to remind us even facial discpline will be necessary in Future Amerika and that we are all being watched...ALWAYS.

And that is why the Democratic Leadership seems so puzzlingly compliant, I think. After al, they don't want THEIR little Binkys and Fauntleroys to suffer the same way we filthy peasants will suffer.

This is just the eginning. These ARE the good old days.

[JohnyCanuck]

25. Well said. n/t

[leftofthedial]

26. this is no last minute full-court press though

the repukes have been working to undo the New Deal since before it was implemented and the same families and political strain have arguably been working for an American monarchy since before the revolution.

Conservatism is a vile philosophy, untenable in a democratic world.

But you are right. This is about the super-elite making their nests and bunkers for after the thing goes into the toilet.

[Skittles]

34. Tom

you need to post an origional thread of this analysis - yes

[JackRiddler]

31. Repuke?

Which administration repealed the Glass-Steagal Act, which made the deregulated debt markets of the last decade possible?

If you don't know, it's a pretty obvious guess!

Sadly bipartisan as usual.

[leftofthedial]

35. plenty of repukes have a "D" beside their name

[JackRiddler]

38. Does that include former President Clinton?

Just checking...

[leftofthedial]

39. the shepherd of NAFTA?

the "reformer" of welfare?

the abandoner of health care reform?

the post-administration bestest buddy of George the First?

. . .

he was to the right of Nixon on pretty much everything; pro-corporate, anti-worker . . .

[Romulox]

40. Don't forget WTO and MFN for China. Bill was a man of the PEOPLE

Unfortunately, those people were international financiers.

[JackRiddler]

41. Okay, we're on the same page.

[Mojorabbit]

27. bookmarking for later. Thanks. n/t

[nashville_brook]

32. just watched it -- big k n r!!

[nashville_brook]

37. as a Central Floridian, there's no one I hate more than real estate speculators...

i used to do freelance for an organization of the nasty creatures. this video CONFIRMED my basic insight into real estate which is that families "buy schools."

so here's my thing. in my work with the speculators there's no issue higher on their agenda than cutting taxes -- which destroy local schools. it's a basic contradiction. they should be POURING effort into the school systems TO PROTECT THEIR INVESTMENTS!

but this isn't the case and it reveals to me that these people aren't "investors" in a normal, healthy way. they are SPECULATORS who have no interest beyond their next "flip."

god, i hate them.