On Jun 13, 1:29?pm, Dave Hall wrote:
SNIP

You shouldn't include equity in a family home as a financial asset,
unless you plan to take up living in a tent. That's like considering
the market value of one of your kidneys; sure you own it, but you're
going to need to use it and can't covert it to cash.

Go where the middle class used to be, John. You'll still find a lot of
people there, but not like a couple of generations ago. Some have
moved "up", and some have moved down. If it was 10%, 65%, 25%
(wealthy, middle class, poor) in the 60's its probably closer to 20%,
45%, 35% today. The middle class is still the largest group, but isn't
growing while the wealthy class and the "have nots" are. It also takes
a lot more money to be middle class today. We're both old enough to
remember when $1000 a month was a pretty respectable income, so maybe
nothing's changed too much except we've added a zero to everything in
sight. :-)

The biggest change, in my opinion, is expectations at each level. I
would dare say that in your change in the "poor" from 25% to 35%, that
10% at the top of the new poor group has more and better "stuff" than
the bottom 10% of the middle class did in the 60s. More of them own
cars, have TVs, (obviously more have computers), live in air
conditioned homes, buy $100 tennis shoes, eat more prepackaged and
restraurant meals... and on and on. They are living more like the
lower middle class or better of the 1960s, but "feel" poorer because
they see what others have. It is drilled into them as they watch TV
and movies (on their DVD players and IPODs) and see what we pass off
as the norm. " Poor" is an extremely relative term.

Dave Hall

There's certainly some merit to your observation. Poor in the 60's was
going to shcool without shoes. Poor in 2007 is going to school in
sneakers that sell for less than $150 a pair. :-)