Worth A Thousand Words

This week I had a meeting with a client of mine who is a high-powered business consultant. His company gets paid handsomely for advising Fortune 500 corporations on their business strategies.

My client shared with me the slide deck they are using for presentations to teach executives about the business climate they now must deal with. This image is from one of the slides. The flat dotted line near the bottom represents the income of the typical working-class and middle-class family, while the other lines represent several of their basic expenses. Quite eloquent, isn't it?

Of course, home prices (the red line) have leveled off or even fallen in the last year or so. But then, over the same period, food prices (not shown on this graph) have really been taking off. So the overall picture is certainly not getting any better. If you've been feeling a little squeezed lately, now you know why.