Oh great. Now since our points don't stand on their own merit, we are going to promote our numbers as fact. Just because they counteract your weak arguments and name calling a bit. But they still are bogus. Jayhawk uses the best numbers, but therein lies the real problem.
The recession was worse than anyone understood. Since the Regan era, everybody has been building their structures on a shit foundation. Since the post-Vietnam era, officials have urged us all to look at numbers the way we want, depending on what is going on at the time. This is called lying. Should the value increase of real estate be used? Should it not? In cost of living only? Etc., all the numbers you, I, and the other guy are used to looking at have been cooked for content so tragically that we cannot have an effective conversation about what is what. My father taught me this before he died. He predicted the dot bust. Got out of high tech, and put his money in Wal-Mart and one or two other real winners. He gave me a lesson because he wanted me to know when to pull out of Wal-Mart. It was about how the information we get is not correct. It says what those that have control of the line want us to hear.
The only thing you can say is when you reduce the real middle class, you put the economy into a negative growth situation (in post WW II America.) When talking about wealth preservation, the size or the health of the economy is almost immaterial. If we need 20 marbles to survive, and there are two hundred marbles, ten of us have 8, eight of us have 18 marbles, and one of us has 156, it doesn't matter. Even if you take another two marbles away from everybody. It does not make a difference.