Life is harder now, some experts say

[groovedaddy]

Generation gap: After paying the bills, middle-class pockets are emptier
By Bob Sullivan
Technology correspondent
MSNBC

Shopping malls are packed every weekend. Restaurants can't open fast enough. Everyone seems to be wearing designer shoes, jackets and jeans and sipping $4 lattes. Credit card commercials constantly advocate splurging and, it seems, U.S. consumers are all too ready to comply.

So what's the problem? Why do so many middle class Americans with so much stuff say they feel so squeezed? If they are dogged by debt, isn’t it their own fault?

Perhaps, some experts say, things are not as they appear.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21309318/

[liberal N proud]

1. The oil companies have taken it all

[AlGore-08.com]

2. Not to mention $3 toilet paper

eom

[liberal N proud]

3. That still comes back to the Oil Companies and higher energy costs

The rising cost of everything that used to be called inflation are a result of the 6 years of climbing energy prices under the bu$h rape and plunder energy policy.

[tom_paine]

7. $3.00 toilet paper? Where do you live? Alaska or Hawaii?

I won't disagree that inflation is spiralling upward in Bush-Occupied Amerika and the Bushies have altered our national data gathering techniques to where they are as believable as a 1977 Soviet Agricuoture Report.

But $3.00 toilet paper? I pay $0.59 for a roll, and if I want to splurge and get the wasteful stuff, I pay 1.19 a roll or so.

I presume you were exaggerating for effect.

[BridgeTheGap]

5. Energy (oil/gas/electricity) & Medical Care/Insurance

They've got us over a barrel!

[unpossibles]

4. very interesting article

thank you!

[damntexdem]

6. Well, it's really great that some "experts" got paychecks to tell us ...

what we all know already. After all, life is harder today even for "experts."