This is pretty much where things are headed in USA. Those of you in Europe - How are things over there? The so called "Stimulation Funds" during both the last days of Bush, and early days of Obama appears to have only helped the upper and the lower class (I think)!!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/23/disappearing-middle-class_n_656941.html

The situation is definitely very bad down there Masoud jaan. I had no idea how bad it was until the last two weeks when I started researching the macroeconomic factors affecting the stock markets. It's an absolute disaster at the moment and nothing is more dangerous for a free and democratic society than the disappearance of the middle class. Iran was a perfect example of this and I don't even want to start thinking about how much worse the situation would be in a country that has laxed gun control laws and gun ownership is ramptant. Unfortunately, this situation is not limited to the US at the moment either.

The run-away train of free market capitalism does indeed need to slow down - but not a breakdown.

BTW - BH jaan - how and when did you necome an abdarchi? I want to be your assistant. I make great ghandpahloo

LOL. We can definitely do Ghandpahloo. I think we should actually allow user selected tittles. Should we bring it up on the Team forum? Maybe when I get a chance, I'll do it.

I thought you may find the following article from Bloomberg quite interesting too. What really bothers me about these situations is that these people had so much income ($150,000 a year is not exactly peanuts) and so little savings. The house this 2nd lady bought is very cheap with Toronto standards where you can't even buy a 550 sq. ft. one bedroom condo with that money. A few months later, she's selling jewlerry and still can't afford to live in a $340,000 house, even with a $75,000 salary?!!! Que pasa?!!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-12/foreclosure-crisis-spreads-across-u-s-as-defaults-jump-in-idaho-illinois.html

lool BH jaan - ma chakerim

Anyways - your article says it all -
I don't know if you ever got the fruits of the "High Tech" craze in the 90's but many did here in America. As a result we had high school drop-outs who made $500,000/year from distributing computer related parts.... Same thing applies to real estate here in America - the market gets hot and every Sears salesperson grabs a real-estate license and suddenly start making hundreds of thousands in just a few months. As you said - the problem is the income is unsustainable and these folks save very little of the income. I know of a real estate loan processor in a major bank who made over one million $ for several years - most of the $ he made buying and selling houses in a few short weeks. Good thing for this guy was the fact that he diversified his income and knew how to save.