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New Wrinkle on Who Are The "Haves" - Are You Paying Your Bills, Have Surplus in Checking?

  Pre-2026: The Haves are the wealthy.  The brutal factors in the current labor market -AI, cost-efficiency, offshoring, plus inflation - have blown that up. Emerging now is a new version of the Haves. They're the ones who can pay their bills on-time and have a reserve of funds in their checking account.  In contrast, are the Have-Nots. Essentially they consist of the 72% of adults in America who are living in financial anxiety and 48% of those have been paying their bills late.  Among the Have-Nots, recently personal bankruptcies have increased 11% . This new category in socioeconomics makes the concept of "middle class" irrelevant.  Smirk. Remember it used to be considered an attribute of being middle class to purchase only brands, own a house and speak standard English.  Well, store private labels are being purchased and served to guests without shame. Don't expect Lay's and Doritos at my Super Bowl party. The chips will be Walmart's Great Value. In more...
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BoomerVille - And, One 72-Year-Old Is Working for $13 Hourly

  "Wow. You're getting 30 hours a week." I assumed I was congratulating this 72-year-old woman on having the ability to land so much work.  She was having none of it. "I get $13 an hour. And am on my feet." Her regret was not investing. Instead she had paid for the children's education and weddings. Well, even if she had invested she might not have been better off. At least not emotionally. Look what we Boomers knew would happen with the Strait of Hormuz closed again and which did: FUTURES IND Close Future Change 49,447.43 49,165 -476 FAIR VALUE FUTURES (-7.57) FV Close Future Impl Open 49,633.43 49,165 -468.43 Last updated: Sun Apr 19 2026 | 7:43 PM EDT
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Telling Your Unemployment Story on BusinessInsider and Elsewhere: High-Risk, for Both You and the Publication

There used to be so much stigma about losing a job, even because of a layoff, that the unemployed: Created rosy spins about how well the job search was going Maintained an overall low profile, taking survival jobs off-the-radar, and Knew that media was not their friend.  Not so much anymore.  A common MO has been to loop into doom-and-gloom, sharing (oversharing) the story of chronic unemployment with the media. That strategy is high-risk, both for the jobless and for the media outlet publishing what is turning out in this AI, cost-efficiency, offshoring low-hire era the "same old." Typical in BusinessInsider is the sharing by former UX designer Christopher Santoso who has been without a full-time job since May 2025. What's most soul-wearing to him is being ghosted when applying. So? Sure, presenting himself in the media can get the attention of employers. That means that such a strategy can be high-reward. I wish that be the outcome for Santoso. However, more probable i...
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BoomerVille: Oh, No

At 6 PM ET we can start checking the Dow futures. Unless there is a fix for the now-closed-again Strait of Hormuz  the gains we've made in our nest eggs in the past few days could go poof. And worse.  Sure, we Boomers are a fragmented lot. Who we are depends on how we experienced the economy. The oldest like myself entered into an era of abundance. Younger Boomers not so much so. But one thing we currently have in common is our necessary preoccupation with money. We could make it into our 90s. Through Facebook I'm encountering members of my class of 1967. So far only one who I know of has passed on. What we didn't expect is that here we still would be at age 80. The angst is if we will be able to keep paying the bills for this peculiar expansion of longevity. Policymakers, please fix the Hormuz issues. 
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Glam, Nobility of Violent Social Action: Luigi Mangione, Daniel Moreno-Gama and Likely More

Agreed, currently capitalism is downright toxic. Predictably there would be a "hero" like Luigi Mangione who allegedly took action against it. That alleged offing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson resonated. Who doesn't live in high angst about a medical bill wiping them out. Most personal bankruptcies happen that way.  Now we have Daniel Moreno-Gama, another young man with a cause we can certainly identify with. As The Wall Street Journal documents: " ... Texas college student named Daniel Moreno-Gama was  charged with attempted murder  and arson as part of an alleged attack on OpenAI chief executive Altman’s home ... He was carrying an anti-AI manifesto ..." Moreno-Gama could also take on the aura of being exactly on the side of right. For that, he has been willing to sacrifice his own future. To more and more, those in the AI box are the bad guys.   Among the tipping points about this technology, from being regarded with awe to terror that the end is n...
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BoomerVille: Did We Lose Sleep Recently for Nothing?

  Dow Jones 30 Industrial Index  , DJIA 49,238.35 +659.63 +1.36%
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Brett Kavanaugh and Other Members of the Lucky Sperm Club: Attacks on Privileged Upbringing Getting Old

SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh grew up in a household with parents who were professionals. SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor didn't. Neither did I. So? This issue of a privileged background - or membership in the "lucky sperm club" - is getting old. Essentially in America we're accepting that life isn't fair. From conception some have an edge. The joke is: Choose your parents wisely.  Proof that Radical Acceptance is the current mindset is that Sotomayor had to back down from attacking Kavanaugh for how differently he grew up from her and from so many immigrants and those who get paid by the hour. That mouth-full didn't go over well. Politico reports: " ... Sonia Sotomayor apologized Wednesday for suggesting that Justice Brett Kavanaugh had a sheltered upbringing that made him insensitive to day laborers being targeted by the Trump administration for immigration enforcement." She hadn't mentioned her SCOTUS colleague by name but she didn't have...
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