Good.

That is a good start.

We’re going to go back until 1976 for this little lesson.

Why 76?

Because that is when I headed west in my Nova SS and even though I was but a young kid of 18, everything seemed fine in the World.

Part of the reason they can’t fix the economy is because they listen to the media, or should I say the Tokyo Rose Propaganda Globalization Group that champions the cause of Global Trade and to hell with the people because I’ve got mine group.

For instance, any of the media types will tell you that you must track the following in the GDP if you want to know if its improving or getting worse:

• Personal Consumption Meaning what we as consumers buy)
• Private Investment (meaning what our businesses invest in their business, buildings, etc.)
• Government Consumption
• Net Exports of Goods and Services (this is where they screw it up)

All I can say to that is poppycock or whatever the old timers would say when it was crap.

The first 3 are good indicators, but that net exports section is totally wrong because we don’t really care what we’re buying and the difference between the two screws everything up as it usually shows up as a negative 669 billion.

We only care what we are exporting because that is where we are making money and to know how to fix the economy, you need to understand where our income comes from, not what we’re spending it on.

So lets take a look at a chart from 76 until now on a quarterly basis and see what we see.

Click to zoom in

Now I want you to take a look at that chart and tell me what you see because it amazes me that our representatives and our corporate executives and our media can’t see this.

Perhaps it is because they don’t want to see it?

After all, if they don’t have you convinced that our biggest customers are overseas, then they can’t pursue their globalization plans, can they?

I’ll tell you what I see if you want to know

1. Gross Private Investment, meaning our corporations have quit investing in America years before the crisis of 08/09 hit and in fact, they are the actual cause of this crisis rather then the housing market because they have been shifting their assets and jobs offshore for years as evidenced by that red line
2. Government Consumption is still plugging along which is good because its been the true savior of us these last year and a half. Yellow Line
3. Exports, or what the media calls the area where we have to be competitive isn’t even in the running is it? Black Line
4. Wow, look at the American consumer go, until the fall of 08 and 09 when everything went to hell on them because the businesses began putting them out of work in earnest (blue line) and yes, the consumer had a small uptick, but it is still below its high and where the media is missing the ball on this part is because 35 % of all Americans counted for 81% of all of the Salaries and Wages in 2007 whereas 65% of all Americans counted for 19% of all of the salaries and wages in 2007, so of course 35% of the people can still buy things. BUT as more and more people move from the Middle Class to the Working Poor, Consumer Consumption will go down and that’s not rocket science.

Here is a chart that will give you a better idea of where the wages and salaries are going.

Click to zoom in

Don’t believe me?

Good, go to the IRS databook for 2007 and pull the figures and you will find these

• 6,850,671,791,000 – Middle Class and Rich (50,000 and up)
• 1,614,563,380,900 – Working Poor (less then 50,000 per year)

If you agree with this, get off your butt and print it out and mail a copy to your representatives or better yet, go visit them and take a copy with you and incase you haven’t figured it out yet, if you click on the title of this article, it will take you to a page with only this article on it and there is a print this button that will print the article with all the links which makes it easy to take all the associated data to a meeting with your congressman.

All I can say, fellow Working Poor is that I am fixing to fax a copy of this to my representatives and I hope you do the same.

Posted on November 23rd, 2009 by vbierschwale
Filed under: My Analysis of the GDP, Wages from 1948 to 2008