WEALTHY PULLED THE RUG OUT

“In effect, the increase in the resources commandeered by the overclass has pulled the rug out from under the once upwardly mobile white working class.”

Thomas B. Edsall, “How Falling Behind the Joneses Fueled the Rise of Trump,” New York Times, July 7, 2016, Opinion Pages.

WEALTHY CAN BID UP THE PRICES

Thomas Edsall, writing in the New York Times, noted: “Growing income inequality in the U.S. has meant that, as those at the top are able bid up the price of valued goods like housing and access to good schools, those in lower groups have struggled to maintain their positions.” [quoting an essay titled, “Keeping Up With the Joneses,” presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association by Neil Fligstein, a professor of sociology at Berkeley, Pat Hastings, a Ph.D. candidate at Berkeley, and Adam Goldstein, a professor of sociology at Princeton University.]

Thomas B. Edsall, “How Falling Behind the Joneses Fueled the Rise of Trump,” New York Times, July 7, 2016, Opinion Pages.

NO MONEY FOR A CAR REPAIR BILL

A May 2015 Federal Reserve report provides a window into the financial condition of many in the working class. It found that 47 percent of Americans do not have the resources to cover a $400 bill for such unanticipated costs as a car repair or a health emergency. They would be forced to borrow from friends or family, to sell something, to go to a payday loan company or to add to their credit card debt.

Thomas B. Edsall, “How Falling Behind the Joneses Fueled the Rise of Trump,” New York Times, July 7, 2016, Opinion Pages.

U.S. MEDIAN INCOME IS $53,567

In July 2014, USA Today estimated that in the United States, where the median household income was $53,567, the minimum annual cost of living the American dream was $130,357.

Thomas B. Edsall, “How Falling Behind the Joneses Fueled the Rise of Trump,” New York Times, July 7, 2016, Opinion Pages.

BRITISH EXIT FROM EUROPEAN UNION RATTLES WEALTHY 

A measure of consumer sentiment dropped sharply in July, as wealthy Americans were rattled by a decision by the U.K. to leave the European Union. The University of Michigan said . . .  its consumer sentiment index fell to 89.5 in July, a three-month low, from 93.5 in June. Economists polled by MarketWatch anticipated a reading of 92.5.

Fidelity Alerts, July 15, 2016

FORMER UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT’S ADVISER NOW PLAYS SAME ROLE FOR TRUMP

            “In December 2013 Russian leaders made financial aid to [Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych’s government contingent upon clearing the streets of protestors. The government’s subsequent escalation of repression – first the suspension of the rights to assembly and free expression in January 2014, and then the mass shooting of protestors in February – turned the popular movement into a revolution. On February 22 [2014], Yanukovych fled to Russia. (Two years later, his political strategist, Paul Manafort, would resurface in the US, playing the same role for [billionaire presidential candidate] Donald Trump.)”

Timothy Snyder, “The Wars of Vladimir Putin,” New York Review of Books, June 9, 2016. Timothy Snyder is the Housum Professsor of History at Yale University. His most recent book is Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning.

MIDDLE-AGE WHITES DYING AT INCREASING RATES

“Last fall [2015], two Princeton economists released a study showing that, since the turn of the [21^st] century, middle-aged white Americans—primarily less educated ones—have been dying at ever-increasing rates. This is true of no other age or ethnic group in the United States. The main factors are alcohol, opioids, and suicide—an epidemic of despair. A subsequent Washington Post story showed that the crisis is particularly severe among middle-aged white women in rural areas. In twenty-one counties across the South and the Midwest, mortality rates among these women have actually doubled since the turn of the century. Anne Case, one of the Princeton study’s co-authors, said, “They may be privileged by the color of their skin, but that is the only way in their lives they’ve ever been privileged.”

“According to the Post, these regions of white working-class pain tend to be areas where [Donald] Trump enjoys strong support. These Americans know that they’re being left behind, by the economy and by the culture. They sense the indifference or disdain of the winners on the prosperous coasts and in the innovative cities, and it is reciprocated. Trump has seized the Republican nomination by finding scapegoats for the economic hardships and disintegrating lives of working-class whites, while giving these voters a reassuring but false promise of their restoration to the center of American life. He plays to their sense of entitlement, but his hollowness will ultimately deepen their cynicism.”

George Packer, “Head of the Class,” a Talk of the Town essay in the New Yorker,
May 16, 2016.