Muscatine

Boy oh boy..... I have missed you, Ned. Straight to the point, just like Channel 6 news.

What do these figures on the debt ceiling prove?    They're mostly arbitrary numbers changed at arbitrary times and at arbitrary frequencies.   They have little correlation with how the actual debt was handled.

In 1983 the starting wage at HON was around $10.92 +/- per hour.  In 2009 the starting wage was around $9.00 per hour.   I haven't seen the price of  bread go down in the past 25 years, just wages.

Who's going to pay the bills?

Bread Per loaf

1980: $1.34 in 2010 dollars ($0.51 in 1980 prices)
2010: $1.39
Change in Real Dollars: +3.4 percent

We're not talking about artisan breads or herb-infused foccacia. The ACCRA Cost of Living Index rates bread prices by the cost of the loaf fetching the "lowest price" at the grocery store. Fortunately for toast-crunching, sandwich-loving Americans, a standard loaf in 2010 costs about as many real dollars as it did in 1980.

Median household income has nearly tripled in nominal value since 1980; in constant dollars the gain was about 8 percent. Real prices for many items stayed level or declined from 1980 to 2010. Consumers spent more, however, on such big items as college tuition and health care.

*1980 and 2009 data from U.S. Census Bureau. Estimates on 2010 median household income were not available by time of publication

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111493/are-americans-as-poor-as-they-feel?mod=family-love_money