1) NatCons and Bernie Sanders Are Wrong: Middle-Class America Has Gotten MUCH Richer Since 1980
One of the bogus contentions of the new “NatCon” big government conservatives and the far-left Bernie Sanders socialists (yes, they are now in alliance) is the line that since the 1980s the middle class has lost income – so free markets don’t work.
That’s not even close to being true. Beginning with the era of Reaganomics – with lower tax rates, less regulation, and more laissez-faire economics – the average middle-class family has seen about a 40 to 50% increase in their real family take-home pay.
(Only in the last few years, under Biden, has the middle class gotten slightly poorer. See below.)
The NatCons and the socialists like to point to a Pew finding that “the middle class, once the economic stratum of a clear majority of American adults, has steadily contracted in the past five decades. The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.”
But why is that? Because more in the middle class have moved UP the economic ladder to the category of upper income and even rich. You can see this from the data.
Pew also says that the share of income going to the rich has increased and this has increased inequality. But how is this a bad thing that we have more rich people? Don’t we want everyone to be rich?
Here's the latest survey data from the Federal Reserve's annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. Only 33% say they are "living comfortably," with 39% "doing okay," and 28% either "just getting by" or "finding it difficult to get by." Parents are especially not OK.
The lowest income groups are the families that are struggling the most.
We’ve said it since we opened our doors. Wind and solar are fringe energy sources that will never be scalable to provide reliable energy for a nation with a $26 trillion economy.
Guess what? More and more Blue State leaders are starting to come to their senses on this.
In New York, the state has canceled power contracts for three offshore wind projects that had been projected to fulfill almost half of New York’s 2035 power needs. Two other projects have been paused. Costs for building offshore wind projects have risen 60 percent between 2021 and 2024.
Governor Kathy Hochul still pays lip service to wind power, but she is starting to pivot. She raised the possibility of building small, new nuclear reactors at a private meeting with environmentalists.
Of course, this is the same state that closed its big Indian Point nuclear plant in 2021 to environmentalist fanfare. Oops.
But Hochul is not alone.
“Nuclear power is our single largest source of carbon-free electricity,” gushed U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm as she joined Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in announcing a $1.5 billion loan from the Biden administration to re-open the shuttered Palisades nuclear power plant.
The reason? Michigan regulators just authorized a 6.4 percent increase in electric rates as the state’s effective ban on natural gas power plants raises costs across the board.
You heard it first here: Democrats are starting to take out a nuclear insurance policy just in case the smoke and mirrors policies of their alternative energy allies threaten a consumer revolt over higher prices.
Nukes are a good investment, but we also need oil, gas, and coal.
The Beatles sang about loving you eight days a week, but now we have more and more Americans “working” four days a week.
Probably you’ve noticed that downtowns feel like ghost towns on Fridays. The latest update from the Kastle office occupancy tracker, shows people are going into the office less on Fridays in 2024 than they did in 2023 (even as the other days of the week continue their slow creep back towards pre-lockdown levels).
This chart shows Friday versus Tuesday last week in each city Kastle tracks. Chicago’s 71% of 2019 levels last Tuesday was a new post-pandemic high.
We’re not sure what to make of this new workweek schedule (the American workweek has been gradually shrinking for 150 years). What do you think?
