America’s middle class is headed toward extinction

(Hat tip: KimR) - In cities across America, the middle class is hollowing out. A widening wealth gap is moving more households into either higher- or lower-income groups in major metro areas, with fewer remaining in the middle, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. Read more at the New York Post Read More......

Sen. Mike Lee on Fighting for Equal Opportunity

FOUNDRY, by Sen Mike Lee (R-Utah) - “In this present crisis,” Ronald Reagan famously declared, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” These words, though they inspired a generation of conservatives, almost sound quaint today. ✧ Government of course remains the problem, but the nature of that problem has evolved dramatically since Reagan’s first inaugural. If Republicans want to grow their party into a national majority, we must begin, as Reagan did in 1981, by confronting our present crisis: America’s large and growing Opportunity Deficit, namely, immobility among the poor and insecurity in the middle class. ✧ Compounding the shortage of opportunities among the poor and middle class is an unholy union of big government, big business, and big special interests that twists public policy to benefit Washington insiders unfairly at the expense of everyone else.

Read more at The Foundry Read More......

How one thinks about money...

Something You Should Know, September 20, 2007, Mike Carruthers

Differences Between The Rich & Middle Class: Interview with Keith Cameron Smith, author of The Top 10 distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class

Mike Carruthers: Financially speaking, there are five types of people.

Keith Cameron Smith:
They are, the very poor, the poor, the middle class, the rich and very rich - and each one of those types thinks differently about money.

Keith Cameron Smith, author of the book The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class… Very poor people will think day-to-day. Poor people think week-to-week; middle class people think month-to-month; rich people think year-to-year and then very rich people will think decade-to-decade. So one of the keys to becoming financially free is to stretch your thinking further into the future.

And these five different types of people have very distinctive financial goals.

Primary goals for the poor and the very poor is survival and the primary goal for middle class people is comfort and most people live there. But the primary goal for the rich and very rich is freedom - where I'm going to do whatever it takes to experience abundance and freedom. And I think the old saying, "Seek and you will find" is very true when it comes to your finances. So if you seek to survive you will, if you seek to be comfortable you will be, but if you seek freedom you will find it.

Having studied successful people, Keith says, how they think and talk is different.

And when I speak around the country, I always offer up a challenge for the next seven days - try not to complain. And once you can go seven days without complaining, you start to become very aware of how powerful your words are. Your tongue is kind of like the rudder of a ship - it determines which direction you're headed in life. And so if you want to see where you're going to be next year or five years from now, you can really just listen to your own conversation and that will give you a real good clue.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.

Read More......