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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Archie Meeties who wrote (76981)	3/27/2008 2:55:35 PM
From: benwood	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

It took a while, but I finally found what I was looking for. Your numbers do not ring true at all in terms of what most people in America experience. With the vast majority of all gains in the past 20 years swept up by the upper crust, the averages have moved higher but the medians have barely budged. allfinancialmatters.com For 2004 at least, the "family" net worth average is 448k. However, the median is only 93k. If the typical family is 3.2 people, then the average would be about 140k but the median would be a paltry 29k per capita. And 50% of Americans would be below that, some negative. Move forward four years and I could see a 150k per capita average but the median I suspect would have increased less because the wealth distribution curve continues to bulge at the fat end (esp. the top 1/2 of 1% but also the top 10%). And now with 10%+ declines in housing and stock market declines, I suspect the median is dropping fairly quickly. Subtract from that recent dramatic increases in credit card debt. And in spite of record IRA, 401k, and whatever, the national average savings rate is still negative and has been for what 18 months. So if those special accounts have record inflows and the overall savings rate is negative, what does that say? To me it says a big storm is brewin'.