The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class

[Lennon]

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.

She provides statistics from the USA which show that the 2 income middle class families today as an economic unit are in fact much worse off that their one income parents were back in the 1970's.

She questions why are American families in so much financial trouble today? She explains that with higher commitments for mortgage repayments, childcare costs and health care costs they have less flexibility and are a riskier economic unit.

[youtube:5aygd27c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A[/youtube:5aygd27c]

[Tiernanator]

This woman has seriously bad hair. Mind you the points she makes are good in the main.

[moghroth]

This woman has seriously bad hair. Mind you the points she makes are good in the main.

They may be. But do they have to be so boring? You don't have to go across the Atlantic to know that the middle class is £$?%@#. As yet we don't know what the long term effects of the SSIA will be but considering it's motivation I would say that they may not be as great as originally conceived.

[zakalwe]

she's absolutely right.

in fact paul krugman wrote a paper on the exact same topic about 4 years ago.

[factual]

This woman has seriously bad hair. Mind you the points she makes are good in the main.

Isn't it a little irrelevant (dare I say superficial) to worry about her hair? She is a dstinguished Professor at one of the worlds greatest Universities - Harvard.

[moghroth]

This woman has seriously bad hair. Mind you the points she makes are good in the main.

Isn't it a little irrelevant (dare I say superficial) to worry about her hair? She is a dstinguished Professor at one of the worlds greatest Universities - Harvard.

Also, possibly one of the universities, where a goodly proportion of the designers, of the financial instruments which prompted the global property crisis, were trained.

[atlantic]

The Irish middle classes are the new poor,they work to survive.They are battered with tax,tolls,indirect taxes etc.
Its time the people in Ireland copped on to the scams in welfare and the public services.It will cripple this country and do you think that Cowen(,Kenny,Gormley,Gilmore give a ************************,their safe the state provides ,has always and always will.

[Pauli]

This woman has seriously bad hair. Mind you the points she makes are good in the main.

Isn't it a little irrelevant (dare I say superficial) to worry about her hair? She is a dstinguished Professor at one of the worlds greatest Universities - Harvard.

Also, possibly one of the universities, where a goodly proportion of the designers, of the financial instruments which prompted the global property crisis, were trained.

No, not Harvard. You are thinking of the Chicago School. Milton Friedman and his bullshyte free market nonsense which has finally been demonstrably thrashed by the bullshyte market he did most to create.

[arnold lane]

The Irish middle classes are the new poor,they work to survive.They are battered with tax,tolls,indirect taxes etc.
Its time the people in Ireland copped on to the scams in welfare and the public services.It will cripple this country and do you think that Cowen(,Kenny,Gormley,Gilmore give a * siúcra *,their safe the state provides ,has always and always will.

And we have no political party to represent us, no one to turn up the heat on Fianna Fail about the countless scams that they support.

[moghroth]

This woman has seriously bad hair. Mind you the points she makes are good in the main.

Isn't it a little irrelevant (dare I say superficial) to worry about her hair? She is a dstinguished Professor at one of the worlds greatest Universities - Harvard.

Also, possibly one of the universities, where a goodly proportion of the designers, of the financial instruments which prompted the global property crisis, were trained.

No, not Harvard. You are thinking of the Chicago School. Milton Friedman and his bullshyte free market nonsense which has finally been demonstrably thrashed by the bullshyte market he did most to create.

But who writes the contracts? Are you suggesting that there are no Harvard types working on Wall Street knee deep in the same bs.