Saturday, March 2, 2013

Consumer Spending Drought: 16 Signs That The Middle Class Is Running Out Of Money – Incomes Are Down, Taxes Are Up, Many Large Retail Chains Are Deeply Struggling Because of The Lack of Customers

by Michael
Drought - Photo by Bert Kaufmann
Is “discretionary income” rapidly becoming a thing of the past for most American families?  Right now, there are a lot of signs that we are on the verge of a nightmarish consumer spending drought.  Incomes are down, taxes are up, many large retail chains are deeply struggling because of the lack of customers, and at this point nearly a quarter of all Americans have more credit card debt than money in the bank.  Considering the fact that consumer spending is such a large percentage of the U.S. economy, that is very bad news.  How will we ever have a sustained economic recovery if consumers don’t have much money to spend?  Well, the truth is that we aren’t ever going to have a sustained economic recovery.  In fact, this debt-fueled bubble of false hope that we are experiencing right now is as good as things are going to get.  Things are going to go downhill from here, and if you think that consumer spending is bad now, just wait until you see what happens over the next several years.
Even though the Dow is surging toward a record high right now, everyone knows that things are not good for the middle class.  A recent quote from CPA Howard Dvorkin kind of summarizes our current state of affairs very nicely…
- See more at: http://investmentwatchblog.com/consumer-spending-drought-16-signs-that-the-middle-class-is-running-out-of-money-incomes-are-down-taxes-are-up-many-large-retail-chains-are-deeply-struggling-because-of-the-lack-of-customers/#sthash.ISySDawq.dpuf

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