Perhaps for the top tier of income. They are led to believe that the booming stock market is some kind of indicator of the economies health. The bankers believe they have eliminated risk do their gambling program called derivatives . They like to believe that since they hold both sides of a derivative that somehow nothing can go wrong. They refuse to recognize that the housing bust existed and they were on the wrong side of that event. The major banks would have gone bust except for the help they got from Uncle Sam and our pocketbooks. The exact amount they were give is pretty much an unknown but estimates are from 1 billion to many billions. Kept afloat by years of 0 interest loans that they used to play the market. Along with various government agencies pushing the market thru large injections of cash guiding the market in whatever direction they wanted... The clearest place to see their effect is the gold ,silver and oil futures all driven to very low levels. You can pick your own reason why they picked those commodities but by money is on the destruction of Russia and Venezuela. 
It's just a matter of time till the wall comes tumbling down. It's common knowledge that consumer spending is 90% of the economy. A quick look at the chart above provides all the information you need to know that things are not well. When 90% of workers earn $31,000 or less there's little left to buy other than the necessities of life.
Most in the workforce today believe they will never retire and they are probably right given a miracle. With union participation at all time lows the only retirement many have is their 401K's and the chart below shows what that is going to do for them.
The average of money in these accounts is $17000 and that is skewed by older folks in the mix.
The other interesting fact is Americans when asked how long they would live not many came close but then how could they. Changing factors along the way make that game a crapshoot. You may live to a ripe old age or you may get run over by a train tomorrow.
But none of that should matter. All should have a guaranteed retirement paid for my them and the company they work for.. That also means that the company needs to pay them enough to contribute. Examples set by our biggest employer (Walmart) that pays very low wages , has lousy benefits, and steers their employees to government assistance programs like food stamps and health care. They tried a nice little trick recently and thought it would make us look upon them in a better light by giving their employees a 10% raise bringing them up to the $10/hr range. Nice try but no dice we are not buying that is the best you can do..However what they do leads the way for other lowballing companies to do the same.
The risk of surviving in today's world is higher than it has ever been in my lifetime. Not only do you have to scrape the barrel to eck out a living, you have nothing left to save towards retirement. Many do without health care and other necessities of life.
Once again we are in an election cycle with the same clown car of candidates on the republican side and at least one on the democratic side. All sing the same tune "WE GOTTA CUT SOCIAL PROGRAMS " we just can't afford them. Yet out of the other sides of their mouth they all want to increase military spending some by huge numbers. The military budget already spends 55% of all our disposable income and yet they want more. Previous posts have pointed out some of the fraud , waste and abuse that exists inside the military budget.
Our infrastructure is falling down around our ears, yet all scream there is no money to fix any of it. Bridges falling down, roads left turning back to gravel , railroads falling apart , utilities in need of huge sums of money to bring them to current standards, but hell no we have no money for that nonsense.
Just looking at which is probably the biggest boondoggle existing today the F35 a $400 billion dollar plane with an lifetime cost of 1.5 Trillion is one place to get the money for infrastructural repair. The argument against cutting the program is job loss palace at 125,000 across 40 some states. No body has said how many infrastructure jobs 1.5 Trillion would buy. But I'm betting a lot more than 125,00 jobs would be created . Just think how many of the good ole time manufacturing jobs could be restarted to build the equipment and materials for such a project.
It's a good question that should be asked of all potential presidents .
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