"Stocks climb to 3-year highs on earnings boost" / "Renters Choose Between Shelter And Food"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.cnn.com/

Stocks climb to 3-year highs on earnings boost

U.S. stocks finished at their highest levels in three years, as investors cheered another batch of earnings results and a report on consumer confidence, CNNMoney reports. FULL STORY

Well there's people and more people
What do they know know know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico
Ooh yeah
And there's winners and there's losers
But they ain't no big deal
'Cause the simple man baby pays for the thrills, the bills, the pills that kill

Oh but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America somethin' to see baby
Ain't that America home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Soaring Costs Force Some Renters To Choose Between Shelter And Food

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/26/rent-vs-buy_n_852779.html

NEW YORK -- Around 10 million American households -- or one in every four families that rent their homes -- could have to choose between paying rent, buying groceries or keeping current with bills, according to a report released Tuesday.

The number of households spending more than 50 percent of their income on rent and bills jumped by 2.6 million over the last decade, according to a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies report. Economists generally consider "affordable" rent to cost about 30 percent of a tenant's income.

When housing costs hit certain levels, many Americans are forced to choose between rent and food. "In real terms, it means more people have less money to spend on household necessities such as food, health care, or savings," Eric Belsky, director of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, said in the report. Households which spend 50 percent or more of their income on rent also spend almost 40 percent less on food and over 50 percent less on health care than households with more affordable rent.

[dkf]

1. Just wait til they inflate our way out of the debt.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

[girl gone mad]

3. It's impossible to inflate our way out of this mess.

It simply can't and won't be done. There isn't enough money in the real economy to support inflated prices of goods and services. The commodities/energy bubbles will either collapse spectacularly or lead to broad political turmoil. Bernanke and team Summers kicked the can down the road, but further collapse is inevitable.

[dkf]

4. Does anyone ever successfully inflate their way out?

Or does it tend to be a stop gap measure before, as you say, the big collapse?

[customerserviceguy]

5. The US inflated its way out of the Vietnam War years

Of course, that was painful for a few "little people" along the way, but most of the American public went along with it, as I recall. Clearly, the Federal government is seriously considering it as a way to get out of the coming Social Security crisis.

[Cali_Democrat]

6. Zimbabwe tried to do it

Bernanke is trying to follow Zimbabwean monetary policy.

He's thinking it'll be successful this time around.

[ck4829]

2. "Rich getting elevators in their mansions for their cars" / "30% foreclosure rate in some FL towns"

The wealth gap and it's effects can't get any louder than this.

K&R

[sarcasmo]

7. The fall of modern day rome is near.