What would happen if you compared a middle-class family in 1970 with a middle class family in 2009?

Distinguished Harvard law scholar, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, and one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2009, Elizabeth Warren, has crunched the numbers and here’s what she finds:

In 1970, the average husband-wife-and-two-kids family had one wage earner, and in 2009 the average family has two wage earners. And although today’s families spend much less ( in adjusted dollars) on clothing, food, appliances, and electronics, they have much less disposable income, and zero savings.

So, what’s up? Where does today’s second wage earner’s extra income get swallowed up?

For starters, in 1970, the average family’s kids followed their parents into the middle class by going through 12 years of free K-12 education. Today, those kids won’t likely enter the middle class without also going through 2 years of preschool and 4 years of college. Who pays for the preschool and college? The family does.

For the average family (2 kids) that’s a total of 4 years of preschool (total: about $40,000 at a minimum) plus 8 years of college (total: about $160,000 for 4-year in-state plus room and board) for a grand total of at least $200,000 that the average family in 1970 didn’t have to spend to launch their kids into the same middle class lifestyle their parents enjoyed.

Add to that new financial burden the cost of a second car (for the second wage earner) and skyrocketing health care, and one thing is clear: the American Middle Class is an endangered species.

One other surpising fact in the data: Since 2000, more families go through bankruptcy than go through divorce. That’s right…chances are very probable that you know more people who’ve gone bankrupt than you know who’ve gone through divorce; bankruptcy is just easier to hide from friends and relatives…

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

Finland, whose high school students consistently rank smartest in the world, has just become the first country to make broadband Internet access a legal right:

Starting in July, telecommunication companies in the northern European nation will be required to provide all 5.2 million citizens with Internet connection that runs at speeds of at least 1 megabit per second.

In contrast, the United States is the only industrialized country without a national policy to promote high-speed broadband. In fact, 46% of rural American households do not subscribe to broadband Internet access.

On the other hand, most of those 46% of rural households do have access to Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing megaphone, the Faux News Channel, where they incur daily brain bathings in irrational conservative spin and lies — a bonafide danger to our national security (in 2003, 67% of Fox viewers believed that the “U.S. has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization” compared with 16% for NPR/PBS.)

While Red State Americans continue to nourish themselves on daily spoon-feedings from the high-pitched hissy fits of Glenn Beck, Hannity, and O’Reilly, the rest of the industrialized world tunes in to thought-provoking documentaries that connect the dots, like this Massimo Mazzucco masterpiece: The New American Century.

Tip of the hat to Indigobusiness for the documentary link.

The original 9-minute album version of Chuck Mangione’s 1977 masterpiece, Feels So Good, always puts a smile on my face.

But believe me when I say: manualist Jerry Phillips has taken this tune to a whole new level of feel good!

Watch: Feels So Good!

Here’s a link to the original short version, featuring the now legendary guitar solo by Grant Geissman that begins at the 1:30 mark.

Come on, America — Insurance company CEOs have a right to their American Dream, too. Their 5-home lifestyle should NOT be up for negotiation.

Let’s come together and help protect their million-dollar salaries, their private jets, and their working Cayman Island vacations. Don’t be so selfish just because you’re sick; think about somebody else for a change :-)

Watch: Protect Insurance Companies.

Chris Wallace gets this week’s Crybaby Award for, well, acting like the biggest crybaby in the world.

Let’s review:
In July, the Fox network was the only major television network to pass on airing President Obama’s prime-time news conference.

Then, earlier this month, the Fox network again was the only major television network to pass on broadcasting President Obama’s prime-time address to a joint session of Congress.

That’s all well and fine, given that Fox Entertainment Group’s Faux News Channel amounts to little more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the rightwinger-nut subculture that’s hijacked the Republican party. That’s well and fine because the United States IS still a free country, and Faux News has the prerogative of ignoring the president and spreading lies and their brand of president-hate on shows featuring nutjobs like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and that bipolar crybaby of crybabies, Glenn Beck.

But can Faux News take what it dishes?

Apparently not.

This is what happens when the president plays fair and returns the favor by appearing on every major network’s news shows and ignoring Faux News: Crybaby Chris Wallace whines, whines, whines, and ironies of ironies, calls the gang at the White House “the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.”

Poor, poor, Chris Wallace…nobody wants to play with him anymore. Guess that’s what happens when you make friends with bullies, Chris. Guess that’s what happens when your previous softball-throwing interview with Dick Cheney seems, as Andrew Sullivan puts it, like a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers. Guess that’s how you lose all journalistic integrity and, unlike your father, have your name get listed in the ranks of gas-filled talking heads, all full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Guess that’s a little old-fashioned karma coming down.

Guess that’s why people are calling YOU the crybaby, Chrissy. Good luck with it!