Signs the Economy is Bad: March 7, 2014 edition

Welcome to another edition of "Signs the Economy is Bad" here at The Itinerant Librarian. This is the semi-regular (as in when I have time and/or feel like doing it) feature where I scour the Internet in search of the oh so subtle hints that the economy is bad. Sure, pundits may say things are getting better, but what do they know? And to show not all is bad, once in a while we look at how good the uber rich have it.  

The pickings are a little lean this week, but we do have two good pieces this week that make for good reading.

• Via AlterNet, "You Call This A Middle Class? 'I am Trying Not to Lose My House!'" Income inequality continues to be a major issue in the United States that the nation ignores at its peril. I mean, this line of thinking is pure evil: "That helps explains why opponents of raising the minimum wage insist that being unable to afford food, clothing and shelter is a character-building experience. If unskilled workers earn enough to live on, the argument goes, they’ll have no motivation to better themselves." Because starving and barely making a living are character building experiences. Those rich cats would not know character if it came and hit them with a two-by-four. 
• Via The Washington Monthly, a much closer look at the so-called "Texas miracle." Governor Goodhair and his cronies love to brag about how good the Texas economy is while they love to threaten to secede. Well, as they say, the proof is in the pudding, and if you look closely, it's far from a miracle. How does the so-called "miracle" work. Well, for example, "middle- and lower-income Texans in effect make up for the taxes the rich don’t pay in Texas by making do with fewer government services, such as by accepting a K-12 public school system that ranks behind forty-one other states, including Alabama, in spending per student."