re: Who is to blame for this alleged disappearance of the middle class?

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I believe that for the most part debt accumulation is due to easy access to credit, undisciplined borrowers and people with a psychological addiction to spending.

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More regulation on banking practices could help alleviate this

The banks make obscene profits off the least credit worthy of their investors and when the shite hits the fan it has ramifications for the economy at large. Then we the tax payers come to the rescue and the cycle repeats.

The large banking institutions in this country are a bigger threat to upward mobility than the government could ever dream of being.

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Academia and the idea that every person needs to go to college. Americans getting too good to learn a trade but not too good to accept government handouts. Poor leadership...baby boomers.

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These are all factors. I do think that we probably have too many people in college. But in addition to that our high school curriculum is lacking to adequately educate the populace.

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Government policies and politics helped create the atmosphere around the financial collapse

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Please explain why you believe this to be true.

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and the fact the govt. bailed out those that were too big to fail help create an atmosphere for the next collapse.

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Agreed

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But finjancial institutions don't want everyone poor. That's crazy talk. They want everyone prosperous. They want prosperity. The want to loan money and they want to get paid back.

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But their most profitable customers are the people living check to check that depend on credit.

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The banks don't want your house, your car, all they want is their principal and interest on time.

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Why would they want it on time? Wouldn't they prefer you to be late or over your credit limit every now and then? You're still required to pay it back and they can tack on penalties, increase your interest rate...

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2) Look at govt. regulations that put a burden on financial institutions to provide reasons behind them turning people down. You can be sued for turning down too many of a certain kind of folk.

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I don't buy this

If anything the government lets the banks get away with lending to too many people who aren't credit worthy, hence the problem. And the banks WANT to do that.

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3) The notion that owning your own home is a desired goal of everyone and creating Fannie and Freddie to "guarantee" mortgage payments, etc. caused a feeling of euphoria and many were able to get loans way beyond their means. It wasn't credit card debt that brought the house down, It was mortgage based securities.

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Agreed

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4) Many in govt. warned about what was happening, but the Dems in Congress laughed at the skeptics. Remember Barney Frank?

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This isn't only a democrat problem but I do agree on Frank

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5) The banks most profitable customers pay on time.

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No. Their most profitable customers are the people who make minimum credit card payments until the day they die.

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6) You are looking only at credit card debt, but I don't remember credit card debt being the reason behind the collapse of the big banks. Wasn't it loans given out for homes and properties?

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Right. Loans that banks voluntarily issued without the coercion of government. And you can bet in some instances the inability to pay those loans was based on other debt burdens that had left those people in a less than ideal economic situation over the years.

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Would it be as big of a problem if people had to pay more interest and had to have higher qualifications to get a card?

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I think the problem would definitely not be as bad if the qualifications were more stringent.

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I think the problem would definitely not be as bad if the qualifications were more stringent.

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If people with credit cards had a better grasp on finances and how compound interest works we'd all be better off.

HS should teach a lot of this in a basic civics class.

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But I do think that financial institutions are probably part of the problem as well. The practice of extending credit to people that aren't really credit worthy creates a cycle of "survival" style cost of living with the constant high interest debt payments that need to be made just to keep current.

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You do realize, that the financial crisis of 08 was caused by the government incentivizing and in some cases, forcing banks to extend loans to those who do not qualify for them, right?

So you are correct that the banks shoulder some responsibility, but the government bears the greatest responsibility.

Don't forget, Obamacare is one of the greatest hindrances to economic expansion of small business this country has seen.
5 million people have lost their insurance because of this act. Many more millions have had their rates increase significantly to be compliant with this law, and the business mandate hasn't even kicked in yet. The worst is yet to come. It will be a disaster of epic proportions.
Of course, a good conservative such as yourself (of which you claim) would know this.

Obamacare forces small businesses to either pay for their employees health insurance, or get penalized. This increased cost of insurance is then past on to the consumer, via higher product costs. These higher costs in turn, cause consumers to cut back on their spending, and reduce the amount of product they buy. That company must now make cut backs via lower wages, or laying off employees to try to maintain a steady profit margin. That in turn reduces the output of the company, resulting in less product, resulting in less profit, resulting in less pay to the employee , resulting in less economic spending freedom for that employee. And for what? To force Americans into a socialist health care program they do not want, that was passed in the name of affordable, which it is not; healthcare, which is lesser that before because good doctors/hospitals rightly refuse to accept socialist healthcare due to the problems with getting paid for the existing socialist healthcare program we are still paying for (medicare).

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You do realize, that the financial crisis of 08 was caused by the government incentivizing and in some cases, forcing banks to extend loans to those who do not qualify for them, right?

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I know a lot of stupid people that believe this.

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So you are correct that the banks shoulder some responsibility, but the government bears the greatest responsibility.

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Right. They should do a better job of regulating the banks.

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Don't forget, Obamacare is one of the greatest hindrances to economic expansion of small business this country has seen.

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It may very well be but I think it's a little early to tell.

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The worst is yet to come.

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I hope you're wrong since it's already been pretty bad.

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The banks make obscene profits off the least credit worthy of their investors

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This makes zero sense.

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This.
I still remember seeing some videos of some black members of congress going off on banks in some kind of hearing. Basically that it was their responsibility to do more to allow everyone to be able to get loans to buy homes.

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People fussing on camera does not translate into legislated government coercion.