LIFE AS A POLITICAL FOOTBALL - Biographical

I have mentioned before that working for the Federal Government is to be a political football.*  We now are in the third Federal shutdown this calendar year.
The first shutdown for the calendar year 2018 was from Saturday, January 20th to 22nd and regarded the failure of a Sen. Shumur proposal to give Pres. Trump his money for The Wall in exchange for legal status for DACA, the Hispanic Dreamers who came to the U.S. as children illegally.**
But on Friday afternoon, as the hours ticked away toward a government shutdown, Schumer went to the White House and told [on Friday, January 19th] Trump he could have his wall. “The president picked a number for the wall, and I accepted it,” Schumer recalled in the midst of the shutdown. He had agreed to a significant sum of money for the wall—reported to be $20 billion, though the Democrat’s office will neither confirm nor deny that figure—in exchange for Trump’s support of permanent protections for the nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants covered under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.**

While this shutdown was mainly over a weekend, employees had to prepare to shutdown at a moments notice before that harming productivity.

The current shutdown is longer and has lasted more than a week with no end in sight, though the Dems take over of House of Representatives on Thursday.  There is no guarantee that Trump will sign a bill giving him $5 billion for his "WALL."  As seen above, he backed off even more money if he would give Dreamers legal status.  When you agree to a point, he tends to add others like getting rid of chain immigration or lottery immigration.  As to this shutdown, he already had a deal once but then backed off when the Fox News crew didn't like it.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/03/fired-by-federal-government-biographical.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/01/2018-lost-fiscal-year.html

STEVE MNUCHIN: IS HE DUMB OR A GREAT LIAR?

I don't know about our Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin.  If you look at his history, you would think he knows a lot about the stock market, but it sure isn't visible.  It is true, however, he has specialized in mortgages, especially distressed mortgages,* and not so much on stocks.  Frankly, he seems either dumb or a great liar.

In 1965 I went to Japan for 12 wks.  People were very nice, but sometimes we would be sort of milling around and someone would come up to me and would say "Don't worry."  I grew to understand that, if I wasn't worrying, I should be.

Mnuchin knew what he was doing when he sounded the alarm by saying banks had plenty of liquidity.  To me and plenty of others, it sounded like my experience in Japan that if you weren't worried you should be.  He should know that no one had reason to worry about the banks during the fall of the stock market, but he had to come out to say that banks have plenty of liquidity

Mnuchin tweeted late Sunday afternoon that he’d called the chief executive officers of the nation’s six largest banks and that those chiefs “confirmed they have ample liquidity available for lending to consumer, business markets, and all other market operations.” Those banks all have liquidity coverage ratios -- a measure of unencumbered high-quality assets that can easily be converted into cash -- that exceed 115 percent, more than the 100 percent required by Basel III rules.**

Manchin has also expressed concern about the stock markets falling steeply in December while the economy is so good.  Surely he really knows that the stock markets aren't concerned about today. Stock markets are concerned about tomorrow, and all the current confusion over tariffs, Trump's attacks on the head of the Federal Reserve, etc., makes tomorrow look awfully uncertain.  It is not a surprise the markets are falling steeply.  Normally the stock markets don't pay much attention to government shutdowns, but this one just adds to the overall uncertainty.  Of course, he must know this and just joined the liar corps.

* OneWest was profitable one year after Mnuchin had bought it, and it became the largest bank of Southern California, with assets worth $27 billion.\\
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OneWest was criticized for aggressively foreclosing on homeowners. The high foreclosure rate might have been a result of the loss sharing agreement with the FDIC, whereby the FDIC had to reimburse OneWest for losses.[11] According to The New York Times, OneWest "was involved in a string of lawsuits over questionable foreclosures, and settled several cases for millions of dollars".[36] Because of these foreclosures, around 100 protesters of Occupy Los Angeles gathered outside Mnuchin's home in October 2011 and held signs that read "Make Banks Pay".[21] Two California fair-housing groups filed complaints to the federal government alleging that OneWest violated the Fair Housing Act by not lending money to African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians.[28][30][37]

In November 2016, after OneWest was sold to CIT, the California Reinvestment Coalition submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to learn more about CIT's reverse mortgage subsidiary, Financial Freedom.[37] According to the HUD's response, CIT/Financial Freedom foreclosed on 16,220 federally insured reverse mortgages from April 2009 to April 2016. This represented about 39% of all federally insured reverse mortgage foreclosures during that time. CRC estimated that Financial Freedom only serviced about 17% of the market and thus was foreclosing more than twice as often as its competitors.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Mnuchin)
** https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-24/bank-liquidity-never-a-question-despite-mnuchin-s-tweet-chart

DEATH FROM DRUGS

I have been taking Tramadol for pain caused by arthritis of my lumbar beginning in 2009.  Once due to a mixup with my physician, I ran out of pills and got very unsteady on my feet, dropped my cane, and fell trying to pick it up (a friend of mine had a similar experience).  I was fine using my walker.

At any rate, I have heard of deaths caused by Tramadol and wondered about it as I feel nothing on taking my pills except I have less pain, not elation or depression, etc.  In fact, I don't crave Tramadol at all and on occasion forget to take a two-pill dosage, usually at lunch.  If I miss once, there is no problem, but, if I skip twice, I begin to feel pain.

I don't know how many pills a day it would take to overdose yourself on Tramadol, but, presumably, it is more than 8/day which is the maximum dosage recommended.  (I take 6/day).  I have found the table* below that is very instructive, I think (Dark blue is for 2016 and light blue is for 2015).  You will note that Tramadol is down the list at #14.

Number 13 is Gabapentin that I also take for nerve pain.  I take a relatively small dose of 300 mg/day and had a friend who would take a gram a day for shingles.  So apparently, you have to take a lot to overdose yourself.  Frankly, I can't tell if Gabapentin does me any good (my friend says it didn't help him much), but it is not a controlled substance.

Please notice the list includes fentanyl that now is the leading cause of death by suicide and over-dose (quotes are in italics).*
As an example, roughly 40 percent of people listed as dying of a cocaine overdose also had fentanyl in their system.

After fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine were the deadliest drugs in 2016. After declines earlier in the decade, the report said, overdose deaths from both cocaine and methamphetamine were starting to rise again.

The study said illegal drugs such as fentanyl and heroin were the primary causes of unintentional overdoses, while prescription drugs such as oxycodone tended to be used in suicide overdoses.*

(click on figure to enlarge)

Incidentally, I have read that about 2/3rds of deaths from Tramadol are suicides and 1/3rd overdoses.   This follows the statement above that prescription drug deaths are more from suicide. You are instructed if you want to discontinue Tramadol not to go off the medication "cold turkey," but to phrase out of it at decreasing one pill per week so It would take me 6 wks, presumably.

Note: I couldn't get #15 on the list, but it is Amphetamines at 1,193 deaths in 2016, that was not ranked in the top 15 in 2015.

* https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/12/fentanyl-now-america-deadliest-drug-overtakes-heroin/2287343002/
Also see:
https://drugabuse.com/featured/the-rise-of-tramadol/
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-11-tramadol-dangerous-illegal.html
https://www.pdr.net/drug-summary/Ultram-tramadol-hydrochloride-950

WHAT NOW? REALLY SCARY!

I'm shocked at the resignation of Gen. Mattis as Secretary of Defence.  I, along with many more informed people, felt reassured with him in office.  Of course, he gave in to sending troops to our Southern border as a political ploy, so he was having to slowly give ground.  Perhaps President Trump's actions to remove our troops from Syria and maybe half the troops in Afghanistan was the last telephone pole (It is more major than a straw) to break Mattis' back.

I'm not sure how important this is, but the stock market is behaving like someone with the bipolar illness.   Right now, the DJIA will have the worst December since 1931.  Can a Santa Klaus rally fix that?

What with Trump shutting down the government, 2019 proves to be a very wild year.  Of course, who knows what is in store for us before 2019 that is only 10 days away?

TAKE THAT TRUMPIANS

Yesterday (December 18), District Judge Emmet Sullivan sentencing Gen. Michael Flynn delivered a message to Trumpians that said, in essence, that they shouldn't "count their chickens before they are hatched."*

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, for example, predicted that the judge would throw out the Flynn case.  Various commentators on Fox crowed over what the judge was going to slap down the FBI.  For one of the more mild examples:
Sullivan has the authority to toss Flynn’s guilty plea and the charge against him if he concludes that the FBI interfered with Flynn’s constitutional right to counsel, although he has given no indications that he intends to do so.*

This was a mistake.  Afterward, they were a bit more careful.
“After 18 months—and you’ve got this guy in a vice grip for 18 months—this?” [Laura] Ingraham said, referring to Mueller’s sentencing memo. “I mean, unless those redactions are really, like, knock your socks off, maybe they will be, I think this is a big zero. I think this Mueller thing, and what they did to Flynn is disgusting.”**

Before turning his discourse to  what Hannity calls the real criminals are Hillary Clinton and James Comey
“This is a disgrace, and this is what we've been telling you. This is a glaring example of a two-tier justice system in America,” Hannity said in his opening monologue after lamenting the alleged hardships Flynn has suffered over the previous year. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials while a member of the Trump transition team. In the memo, the Mueller team recommended that Flynn face no prison time because of his "substantial assistance" to the investigation.***

The judge really tore into Flynn and even asked the prosecution if they have considered Treason!  It looks like the judge is ready to sentence Flynn for a crime worse than lying to the FBI{.
"I'm not hiding my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense," Sullivan said


* https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-national-security-adviser-michael-flynn-sentenced
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/18/michael-flynn-sentencing-collapses-judge-disgust-former-trump-aide/2352912002/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/case-michael-flynn-timeline
** https://www.newsweek.com/laura-ingraham-fox-news-mueller-flynn-1245223
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXCGpK1gtxQ
*** https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-sean-hannity-michael-flynn-hillary-clinton-1244655

GOOD BYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE GEN. JOHN KELLY

When Gen John Kelly was appointed to be the Secretary Of Homeland Security, I was reassured; however, instead of deporting serious criminals, he started to deport illegal immigrant mothers from their American citizen children because maybe they had a shoplifting conviction 10 yrs before.  If the mother had a shoplifting conviction a decade or more before and wasn't deported then, why now?

But Kelly took this so seriously. he looked into the possibility of deporting the American citizen children with the mother.  So I was relieved when Kelly was removed as Secretary and made Chief of Staff to President Trump.  But even there he couldn't restrain himself and picked a verbal fight with an African American U.S. Representative using false arguments.  When it was pointed out to him that his points were not true, Kelly refused to apologize.

Because Kelly was willing to deport illegal immigrant mothers from their American citizen children, it should be no surprise that he didn't think anything was wrong with separating children from illegal parents crossing the border with no intent of ever reuniting the children with their parents.*  He said the children would be well taken care of and "put in foster care or whatever." This was being done to discourage illegal immigration, but it includes people asking for asylum as well.

"They're overwhelmingly rural people," Kelly said. "In the countries they come from, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-grade educations are kind of the norm. They don't speak English — obviously that's a big thing. They don't speak English. They don't integrate well. They don't have skills."*
But what about what used to be called "stoop labor?"  I believe people willing to pick crops such as tomatoes and strawberries are in short supply.

Needless to say, Gen Kelly has been a huge disappointment to me.  I have a hard time understanding his attitude on the permanent separation of the children from their parts.  Perhaps if you had to face putting soldiers into harms way, separating children from the parents, literally kidnapping them, doesn't seem like such a moral problem.

* https://www.businessinsider.com/john-kelly-family-separation-policy-illegal-border-crossing-2018-5
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/29/615211215/fact-check-are-democrats-responsible-for-dhs-separating-children-from-their-pare

EFFECT OF THE CORPORATE TAX CUTS, NOT MUCH

I have had an observation that the 2017 Corporate Tax Cuts haven't had much effect.  Much to my pleasure, an article has been published explaining my observation (Quotes are in italics.  You are encouraged to read the whole article.).*

Ever since Treasury Decision 8697 came into effect on Jan. 1, 1997, American companies have largely avoided paying tax on profits from sales outside the U.S. The rule, which was passed more or less by mistake, allowed companies to defer paying tax indefinitely as long as they “reinvested” their earnings in offshore subsidiaries. U.S. companies could not use those foreign profits to pay dividends to shareholders, repay their debt, or do M&A.

This regime encouraged American multinationals to shift reported profits from places where they actually sold goods and services to places with favorable corporate tax codes, most notably Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Switzerland. By 2017, the latest year for which we have comprehensive data, roughly 80% of the net foreign direct investment income earned by U.S. corporations came from subsidiaries in those seven tax havens—up from just 30% in 1997.
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Since the end of last year, however, U.S. multinationals have been able to formally “repatriate” their retained earnings without paying tax. So far, companies have brought back just $184 billion in the first half of 2018. Foreign subsidiaries paid dividends to U.S. parents worth $434 billion, but $250 billion of that was funded from fresh profits earned from offshore sales. .....  At current rates, it would take more than a decade to fully return all of the reinvested earnings stashed in the main corporate tax havens to U.S. shareholders.
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After years of steady increases, stock prices have been flat since the passage of the tax changes, while volatility has increased. Tariffs have increased costs and raised uncertainty. Wage growth has continued to accelerate, albeit from a low base.

Together, these forces could have persuaded executives to cut back on investment, M and A [Mergers and Acquistions], and shareholder payouts. It is possible that the corporate tax changes helped offset all this, which would explain why nothing seems to have changed. It is also possible, however, that the tax changes were a pointless transfer that simply gave companies more earnings to retain rather than spend. 

An analysis of the current and coming markets has been made by Liz Ann Saunders.**

I don’t think that earnings growth will persist next year. Unless there is a reversal back up in oil or a big drop in the dollar, the consensus earnings growth estimates for 6% to 8% for 2019 seem too high. There is not an insignificant risk that we move into an earnings recession, like we saw in late 2015 and early 2016. That didn’t turn into an economic recession because it was concentrated in energy. There’s a cushion in energy so that it won’t be as deep as we had in 2015-16, but exports and capital expenditure-tied industries could take a significant haircut from mid-single- digit earnings growth to negative territory. And that’s not in stock prices.
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We are seeing notable deterioration in key indicators, like an upward trend in unemployment, a rollover in ISM [Institute for Supply Management] orders, a lengthening of the average workweek, and housing not looking good. 
.........................................................................
We hit the first wall in 2008. That was the crash. But the only thing that unleashed was a massive deleveraging of households, and we shored up the banking system. The components of debt today are outside the household sector. Corporations have record amounts of debt. That’s not as ugly a story as the numbers tell you, but the public-sector debt hasn’t gotten any better

Although there was great economic enthusiasm at the beginning of the year, enthusiasm has died during the year.  Previously I have said the personal income tax cuts are an inefficient way to stimulate the economy.***  I guess we are finding that corporate income tax cuts are also an inefficient way of stimulating the economy as companies buy back stock, raise dividends, raise salaries of CEOs and other major executives.  They also tend to buy companies that they know nothing about and later return to the "core" business while selling them off at a loss.  They also may pay off bonds they have accrued in borrowing to pay for dividends and other non-productive investments.

* https://www.barrons.com/articles/last-years-corporate-tax-overhaul-hasnt-made-much-of-a-difference-1544226832
** https://www.barrons.com/articles/charles-schwab-strategist-on-stock-market-recession-51544799898
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.htm\
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/07/trouble-with-income-tax-cuts.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/09/tax-cuts-and-economic-stimulation.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/11/tax-cuts-do-not-pay-for-themselves.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/11/tax-cuts-do-not-pay-for-themselves-ii.html

TRUMP'S ROMAINE LETTUCE FIASCO

Huge agri-businesses in California and Arizona deliver most of the lettuce, spinach, and cabbage we buy. Greens are mostly eaten raw so any — hold your nose — fecal material that might have attached to it doesn’t get cooked away. Giving them a bath in your kitchen sink isn’t enough. At least 43 people fell ill in such a wide swath of the country that there had to be a “clean break,” with a warning that all romaine could be contaminated.*


How did Trump cause the Romaine lettuce plague you ask?

There oughta be a law to make sure that animal waste and the E. coli bacteria that comes with it doesn’t find its way to your table. There is. Before Congress was paralyzed, it occasionally saw a problem and moved to fix it. The Food Safety Modernization Act signed by President Barack Obama in 2011 was the first attempt since 1938 to improve the safety of what we eat. A more stringent requirement for growers to test water for the strain of E. coli that makes us sick grew out of that law.*

The government was slated to start testing samples this year. Instead it’s now 2022 and could be later yet. Sarah Sorscher of the Center for Science in the Public Interest says the FDA was right when it said the rules on agricultural water could have been improved. “But then they started talking about the regulatory burden on farms and you knew the delay was leading towards even less protection,” Sorscher says.*

It’s part of Trump’s M.O. Most regulations are a nail and he’s a hammer. All requirements are pesky and burdensome. Anything with Obama fingerprints on it is particularly bad. He’s going to get government off the backs of hard-working businessmen, even if it kills us.*

I suppose we can't find out how many of those who got sick voted for President Trump.

No doubt there are regulations that are superfluous, but those, or at least nearly all of those, dealing with food safety are there for a reason.

https://www.newsmax.com/margaretcarlson/romaine-lettuce-e-coli-trump/2018/11/30/id/892653/?

GEORGE H.W. BUSH (BUSH-41) REST IN PEACE

I have written about the Bush-41 presidency before and will republish my comments herein.  Though I couldn't stand either Jimmy Carter or Bush-41 when they were president, I came to feel they were the best presidents after WW-II.

Here is what I wrote in the item called "Landmines In The Way To Becoming A Great President".*
(http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/05/land-mines-in-way-of-becoming-great.html) (published in May of 2012)
Bush-41 (George H.W. Bush) In retrospect, George H.W. Bush had a pretty good record as president. Unfortunately, he raised taxes after famously saying, "Read my lips. No new taxes." This action has caused him to be ignored by his party. He got through the Americans With Disabilities Act and started the ball rolling on NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement). After a mistake by his State Department that led to the first Iraq War (Desert Storm), the allies decisively won and freed Kuwait. Furthermore, the U.S. used up existing munitions and other countries contributed to financing the war that cost the U.S. essentially nothing monetarily. Also, he knew when to stop the war. He also conducted a war in Panama (Operation Just Cause) over illicit drugs that captured the dictator Noriega, a task that Reagan was unable to accomplish. Although Republicans give Reagan all the credit, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later, both while Bush was president. From what I read, getting there took the skills of Bush to complete the fall. Bush consummated the Start Treaty. Bush also started Operation Restore Hope in Somalia that unfortunately came to a disappointing ending in his successor's term. He cut the Federal labor force by several hundred thousand employees. He was never able to obtain his dream of a capital gains rate of 20%. When speaking in public, Bush tended to speak in a rather whiny voice that many found unattractive. Like Carter and Ford before him, Bush was plagued by the perception of rising unemployment running up to election day. I was surprised that in one on one interviews, his voice was quite normal and attractive. Bush was noted as a gentleman in his campaign for reelection that should be a model for others, but, as he pointed out, he lost.

Here is an excerpt from "THE ECONOMY: PART 2:" (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/02/federal-economy-part-2.html) (published in Febrayry of 2010)
Bush-41 should get a lot of credit for raising taxes as should Clinton, but it was too late to balance the budget for Bush-41. Contrary to the belief by many, there is little evidence that raising taxes ruins the economy or that lowering taxes helps the economy.* In fact, if Bush-41 and Clinton had not raised taxes, there would probably have been no positive cash flow in the 1990s. Combined they also decreased Federal employment by more than a million.

* The reason that lowering personal income taxes have minimal positive benefits to the economy is that the poor do not pay income taxes, the middle class tends to pay off debts with the new money, and the wealthy buy Treasury bonds, chalets in Switzerland, Bombardier personal jets from Canada, and islands in the Bahamas. Though some of these benefit the global economy, they do not aid the American economy. Alan Greenspan, when he was chairman of the Federal Reserve expressed the worry of the wealthy buying too many Treasury bonds with their tax savings. As I said in the post below, there probably is an optimum tax level to maximize Federal revenues, but I do not know what that level is.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO PAY FOR SHOOTINGS

A recent news article states that the Federal Government has put aside nearly $17 million for survivors of the Nevada concert shooting, the worst in U.S. history

Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Friday in Cincinnati that the money will defray costs of counseling, therapy, rehabilitation, trauma recovery and legal aid for thousands of people affected by the Oct. 1, 2017, massacre.*
.............................................................................
Fifty-eight people died and more than 850 were injured when a gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel into an open-air country music concert crowd of 22,000 people.*

I was kind of shocked that the government was going to pay aid to shooting victims as I didn't know that it had been done before.  But then I thought, "Well if the government isn't going to do something about guns, then it may be in order for the government to pay reparations to victims of shootings."

So I looked into this and apparently it is not unusual for the government to do this.  Among other shooting events cited are:
An unspecified portion of the money [later said to be $29 million], allocated under the government’s national Crime Victim Assistance Formula Grant program, can be used to provide services to the families of victims of the shootings at Emmanuel AME Church, spokesman Kevin Lewis said.**
A payment was also made in the Sandy Hook school shooting and no doubt others.

* https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/us-las-vegas-shooting-funding/2018/11/30/id/892656/?d3310b9288ee&ns_mail_job=DM9600_11302018&s=acs&dkt_nbr=01013514ua2v
** https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/07/01/charleston-victims-payout/

TRUMP'S CONTEMPT FOR GOVERNMENT

Increasingly, I am getting the idea that Trump is going out of his way to pick weird candidates for office.  For example, he chose Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme  Court even though McConnell told him Kavanaugh would be the hardest choice to confirm.  He chose Matthew Whitaker for Acting Attorney General even though he is wildly unqualified and maybe even a crook.

Then there is Alex Acosta who is Secretary of Labor who seems like a crook when he got off a billionaire who was raping teenage girls.  No, he wasn't the defense attorney, he was the Prosecutor!  Of course, we shouldn't overlook Ryan Zinke, Secretary of Interior, who seems to think working for the Federal Government is like a child locked in a candy store.

Administrator of EPA Scott Pruitt is so bad he had to resign and so did the Secretary of HHS Tom Price.  Did I mention Michael Flynn?

There is more: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/trump-cabinet-officials-in-ethics-scandals.html

Trump's choices certainly show a contempt for government:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/19/donald-trump-has-assembled-the-worst-cabinet-in-american-history/?utm_term=.5ab6e88c80c0

PERSONAL SPENDING

In spite of the tax cut of 2017, many Americans are cutting back on their spending (see figure*).  I encourage you to read the entire cited article.

Americans are cutting back on how much money they spend. More than two-thirds of U.S. adults say they're making an effort to reduce their monthly budget in order to save more, according to a new survey from consumer-financial company Bankrate. But saving isn't the only reason they're cutting back.*

While 36 percent say their priority is saving, 24 percent say they're curbing their spending because their income hasn't changed. About 17 percent say they have too much debt, 11 percent say they're worried about the economy and 5 percent are concerned about job security.*

Trying to spend less makes sense for most people, regardless of the reason. A survey from personal-finance website GOBankingRates found that 42 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 put away for retirement, while a Northwestern Mutual study found that a third of Americans had less than $5,000 for retirement and 21 percent had nothing saved at all. And only 39 percent of adults say they have enough in savings to handle a $1,000 emergency.*

Meanwhile, middle-class incomes have shrunk in all but two states, credit card debt has hit $1 trillion and student loan debt exceeds $1.5 trillion.*

(click on figure t enlarge)

Surprisingly 24% say they are cutting back because their income hasn't changed compared to 36% who say they are saving more.

* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/heres-why-americans-say-theyre-cutting-back-on-monthly-spending.html