The perpetual discussion about the ongoing battle between rich and poor, between the one percent and the ninety-nine percent, has generated a great deal of heat, but not much light. With The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It, New Republic columnist Timothy Noah brings a well-reasoned array of high-wattage spotlights.
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher has a message for Congress: “They have to do their part; we’ve done ours.”
“If you want the bottom line: what we do is necessary but not sufficient,” he says. “Unless you have right fiscal and regulatory policy, and of course demand, all the amount of monetary policy in the world isn’t going to do the trick.”
Good article on different ways some people are increasing cash flow and lowering costs through asset sharing and renting. This is precisely the type of progressive thinking that is helpful to survive and thrive presently repressive financial conditions. Figuring out paths to greater efficiency, sharing, getting more out of less–these are key themes that will lead people and our economy back to fiscal health over time with much less debt. A comfortable lifestyle can be earned through thoughtful planning and discipline, not borrowed from a bank. See: Retirement 2012: Sharing for cash
‘It’s all part of the so-called “Sharing Economy,” or what experts call Collaborative Consumption, a movement fostered by people looking to expand the peer-to-peer transactions of eBay [EBAY 41.21
0.19 (+0.46%)
] and Craigslist into other parts of life.
Rachel Botsman, co-author of “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption,” says the trend comes from people being comfortable with tech services that allow lending of goods and space at a massive scale. It also means that retirees can pay for their lifestyle in ways other than with cash — a promising solution for the huge problem of retiring boomers with limited cash.”
