” How does he explain real per capita consumption increasing by more than 2% annually over the past decade? He wants us to believe that median family incomes have declined even though productivity is rapidly increasing.”
Real simple, people borrowed on their home equity and blew it on non important things and finally were unable to make the oayments which caused the housing crash.
There are more forclosures from re finances than purchases.
I don't think so. Our debt to income ratio was pretty constant over the past 10 years until this last year. Our household net worth skyrocketed during that same time. American households mired in debt is a myth. Total real compensation for American families is rising. It's just that we're getting more of our increases from benefits than from wages. I'm not surprised that the NYT's would (intentionally?) mislead their readers regarding this. Makes the Bush years look bad and keeps the BDS alive. Obama is going to need a lot of BDS to explain away the even bigger mess he's planning for us.