What will be the exchange rate of the dollar in Colorado versus Vermont? The reason the Peso is not changing in relation to the dollar is that like it or not, their economy is based upon the dollar. Period. The largest import is the illegal alien money going back to the country. That is the down side for Mexico, but the reality of the situation.

It's people who think any economy is "President X's" economy who are the mentally retarded ones.

Still no edit button, so let me change that to read "uneducated ones" - wouldn't want to sling the same mud TP does, though I was only using her own terminology. She's not mentally retarded, just ignorant and rude.

The problem is hidden within the fact that the majority of economic growth is only being enjoyed by the wealthiest. So even though GDP didn't show a recession last quarter the reality is that there are a lot of folks in the middle and lower economic classes are getting hammered. Globalization is tough and one should expect that the American standard of living will fall as it happens, but there is a limit to how much and how quickly it should fall.

Where did you get that information from?

This article is probably a good starting point that sums up a lot of what is going on and some of the reasons why.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/business/09leonhardt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


It is very difficult to show numbers reflecting the recent quarter since census bureau data is not updated that swiftly but it should be obvious that the trend shown in the
census bureau graph in the article has not changed in the last year.

There are also various links on the web showing income inequality trends but i think some of comments/info found within the following link to be worth pondering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States

Thank you. What I see is that the "Income Inequality" is not really changing as a percent, just in whole dollars. Which of course one would expect. In other words, it is not getting worse, it is just not getting better.

to give a simplistic view, lets take 2 people. Joe, the Mechanic, makes $20k a year. John the Anaylst makes $100k a year. Each get a 5% raise. So last year, John was making $80k more per year. However this year, John is making $84k more per year.

Nothing has really changed. Both got decent raises, but 5% of 100 is greater than 5% of 20, so John's raise was bigger, but the proportional difference is the same.

Of course you are not going to see it reported that way, since that is not "news". But reporting that the "inequality" is growing sells papers - even if it is not entirely true, but merely a playing with statistics to prove a preconcieved agenda.

My initial statement was in regards to the economy as a whole...That is after all what the post is about. My statement was that "the majority of economic growth is only being enjoyed by the wealthiest".

The article and census data pointed out that the average wage went down during the last economic expansion for the first time since WWII. The fact that average wages actually went down during an economic expansion means that the the working class as a whole did not get anything out of the last business cycle. You cannot compare 100k and 80k wage earners...they are both in the middle class and not even close to the wealthiest for which my statement refers to...The wealthiest are making millions or billions. Income equality as a whole is IN FACT as reported by the Census Bureau now surpassing the lvl that it was at in 1928, which is very troublesome to a lot of economists including Alan Greenspan which i simply name because many people actually know who he is. This is not playing with statistics. This is what the Census Bureau statistics shows and has been the topic of several speeches that have come straight out of the mouths of the Fed Reserve over the past few years.

So the point is there may not be a recession in the usually terms of GDP but if the working class is making less money (or not keeping up with inflation), paying more for necessities such as food and energy, and the unemployment rate is increasing then the working class is experiencing the same pain they feel in a recession because only the wealthiest are experiencing the benefits of any economic growth that is being reported in the GDP.

I only used the numbers for demonstrative purposes, but was making the statement based upon the graph you linked to.

Also, 12-20 million illegals MAY have had something to do with average wages and trends. These days, you may hire an american to do a job, but chances are better than average, it will be an illegal doing the work.