Writing for Forbes, Bryan Rich, claims the economy is better than you think and credits the central bank. “The Fed has manufactured a recovery by promoting stability, writes Rich.  “And they’ve relied on two key asset prices to do it: stocks and housing.”

Like any good Keynesian, Rich is happy the deleveraging that occurred after 2007 is nearly over, claiming “paying down debt has weighed on economic growth.” He concludes with the old saw, “Consumption makes up more than 2/3 of the U.S. economy.  And you can see…, the consumer is in a solid position.” But has the consumer really paid down debt? According to David Stockman, “Based on the most recent flow-of-fund report for Q1, households now have record debt of $14.3 trillion.”

 Neal Gabler writes in the Atlantic that America’s middle class is in dire straits. Gabler is a successful writer and yet he’d have trouble coming up with $400 to pay for an emergency. And he’s not alone, according to the Fed, $400 is a bridge too far for 47% of Americans.   

Gabler feels shame for having nothing around him financially, after all, “I am nowhere near rich, but I have typically made a solid middle- or even, at times, upper-middle-class income, which is about all a writer can expect, even a writer who also teaches and lectures and writes television scripts, as I do,” he writes.  

People don’t talk about their finances, but instead keep funding their lifestyles with credit for appearances sake.  Gabler writes, “Many of us, it turns out, are living in a more or less continual state of financial peril.”

How would many Americans put together some significant cash? Not by saving according to many. “A pre-recession survey by the Consumer Federation of America and the Financial Planning Association found that 21 percent of Americans felt the ‘most practical’ way for them to get several hundred thousand dollars was to win the lottery,” writes Gabler.

But this is just great from the Keynesian view as William L. Anderson explains on mises.org, “There is a sad irony in Gabler’s article, and that is that what he understands as a real financial crisis in middle-class households actually is the ideal state of things via the Keynesian lens of economic thinking. In the upside-down world of Keynesianism, the fact that most Americans now live hand-to-mouth without any appreciable savings is a triumph and is the key to prosperity, at least in the Land of Keynes.”

Anderson goes on to explain that the Keynesians believe if too many people save, “ the so-called Paradox of Thrift would take hold and actually drive down the economy into the dreaded Liquidity Trap.”

Of course savings has value in the case of emergencies. For readers looking for a dark film about finances, check out Netflix for Assault on Wall Street.  Made in 2013, the story revolves around Jim, a big hunk of a man, who works hard to pay his wife Rosie’s medical bills.

The story is set with Wall Street melting down and when Jim needs money for Rosie, he learns the commercial real estate fund that promised 8-10% payouts was now not only worthless, but Jim was getting a $60,000 capital call.

Things then go from bad to worse as he borrows money from a co-worker to hire an attorney (played by Eric Roberts) who doesn’t perform. Jim and Rosie’s adjustable rate mortgage resets doubling their payment amount and due to Jim’s credit troubles he loses his job with the armored car company and everything dear to him.

Despite not having any money he takes up smoking and feverishly buys financial magazines. We quickly learn Jim is a trained sniper and he’s out to get revenge for his liquidity troubles, targeting Wall Street executives he reads about.

Of course, Jim has his automatic weapons and multiple pistols pointed in the wrong direction. Ben Bernanke and members of the Open Market Committee never appear in Jim’s cross hairs.

“People are able to resist force only for so long before giving in,” writes professor Anderson, “and given that the Keynesian war on savings has continued unfettered for decades, and has been blessed at the highest levels of government and academe, not to mention touted in the news media, we should not be surprised that people save less.”

The great Keynesian experiment has left millions of Americans living on the edge: with dire consequences ahead when, as Stockman writes, “the third great financial bubble of this century comes crashing down.”