he truth is that the middle class in America is dying --

and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace. (wealth distribution is not working)

Here are the statistics to prove it:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands

of 1 percent of the people.

• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck

to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and

43 percent in 2007.

• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007

went to the top 1% of all Americans.

• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute

anything to retirement savings.

• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than

$10,000 saved up for retirement.

• 24 percent of American workers say that they have

postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.

• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy

in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.

• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs • For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to 300 to 500 to one.

• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households

held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United

States now own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent

when compared with 2008.

• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns

60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.

• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as

much of America's corporate wealth as they did 15 yrs ago.

• In America today, the average time needed to find a job

has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are

employed are now working in service jobs, which are

often very low paying.

• For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

• This is what American workers now must compete against:

(Destroying our Middle Class)

in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United

States are living below the poverty line in 2010

- the highest rate in 20 years.

• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. 

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                                                                                          An email from Myron Smitley

                                                                                                 (author unknown)

I was at a deck party awhile back, and the bugs were having a ball biting everyone. A man at the party sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, and the little demons disappeared. The next year I filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around my seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. And voila! That worked as well.. It worked at a picnic where we sprayed the area around the food table, the children's swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, I don't leave home without it.... So, try this, please. It will last a couple of days. Don't spray directly on a wood door (like your front door), but spray around the frame. Spray around the window frames, and even inside the dog house."