This is an hour long, but I can’t recommend it enough.
Elizabeth Warren, Harvard’s Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, discusses the eroding middle class by comparing, passionately and convincingly, a typical family in the 1970s to one in the 2000s. Of note:
- savings rates, adjusted for inflation, have declined from around 11% to (optimistically) zero;
- mortgage rates have fallen significantly, but houses are twice as expensive;
- statistically speaking, you know more people who have declared bankruptcy than people who are divorced.
Watch the whole thing. It’s worth the time. [via]