Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Keep in mind that tax expert David Cay Johnston says "Romney's Tax Plan is George W. Bush on Steroids". If you liked the Bush Great Recession, you're going to love what Willard "Mittens" Romney has in store for you. Repost: The Bush Years Were a Lost Decade.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that Americans saw wealth plummet 40% from 2007 to 2010, Federal Reserve says:
The recent recession wiped out nearly two decades of Americans’ wealth, according to government data [Federal Reserve Bulletin (.pdf)] released Monday, with middle-class families bearing the brunt of the decline.
The Federal Reserve said the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That puts Americans roughly on par with where they were in 1992.
The data represent one of the most detailed looks at how the economic downturn altered the landscape of family finance. Over a span of three years, Americans watched progress that took almost a generation to accumulate evaporate. The promise of retirement built on the inevitable rise of the stock market proved illusory for most. Homeownership, once heralded as a pathway to wealth, became an albatross.
The findings underscore the depth of the wounds of the financial crisis and how far many families remain from healing. If the recession set Americans back 20 years, economists say, the road forward is sure to be a long one. And so far, the country has seen only a halting recovery.
“It’s hard to overstate how serious the collapse in the economy was,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “We were in free fall.”
The recession caused the greatest upheaval among the middle class. Only roughly half of middle-class Americans remained on the same economic rung during the downturn, the Fed found. Their median net worth — the value of assets such as homes, automobiles and stocks minus any debt — suffered the biggest drops. By contrast, the wealthiest families’ median net worth rose slightly.
Not only were Americans still facing significant debts, but they were making less money. Median income fell nearly 8 percent, to $45,800, in 2010. The median value of stock-market-based retirement accounts declined 7 percent, to $44,000.
But it was the implosion of the housing market that inflicted much of the pain. The median value of Americans’ stake in their homes fell by 42 percent between 2007 and 2010, to $55,000, according to the Fed.
The poorest families suffered the biggest loss of wealth from the drop in real estate prices. But middle-class Americans rely on housing for a larger part of their net worth. For some, it accounts for just more than half of their assets. That means every step downward is felt more acutely.
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According to the Fed survey, that paper wealth — or what is officially called unrealized capital gains — shrank 11 percentage points, to about a quarter of Americans’ assets.
The Fed’s survey is conducted every three years.
For the love of God, do not give the keys to the government back to these delusional Tea-Publicans who drove the country over the cliff and will only do so again.
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