Group items tagged

At the height of the boom, USA Today published a poll in which 81 percent of young adults said getting rich was their top priority (and 51 percent gave the same priority to becoming famous). Americans now face a new personal finance reality.

the failure to own a home is generally not a source of stress in the same way that drowning in debt and the inability to retire are.

• The buyer paid low fees in the application and approval process. • The interest rate was low.

The reality is we’re still in the doldrums, and the most recent data gives cause for serious worry. Almost all the forward movement in the economy is now coming from consumers —  whose spending is 70 percent of economic activity. But wages are still going nowhere, which means consumer spending will slow because consumers just don’t have the money to spend. 

The Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low, allowing consumers to get low home-equity loans and to borrow against the rising values of their homes. Needless to say, this trend, too, is unsustainable.

Over 90 percent of the value of the stock market — including 401(k)s and IRAs — is held by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population.

eft to themselves, people tend to sort themselves

out into communities of like-minded neighbors.

None of this should be surprising. Individuals and groups of all sorts have always differed from one another in many ways, throughout centuries of history and in countries around the world. L