The cost of living just kept rising faster than paychecks were, and little by little our standard of living just kept going down.  Now we have reached a stage where the ultra-wealthy are thriving but almost everyone else is struggling.  For most people, it is a real fight just to pay the bills from month to month.  The majority of the population is deep in debt, and meanwhile the cost of just about everything is going up and up.  Millions of Americans feel like they are drowning financially, and there is no easy way out.  Sadly, many of them don't even realize that the game was designed to get them on to a hamster wheel and keep them running for as long as possible.

When I was a kid, the United States had a very large and very prosperous middle class.

Life certainly wasn't perfect in those days, but just about everyone that I knew could afford to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle.

Sadly, now everything has changed.

According to a survey that was just conducted by Seven Letter Insight, 65 percent of Americans "who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level" admit that they are struggling financially…

In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level — that's at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class — said they are struggling financially.

If 65 percent of those that "earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level" are struggling, what about those that earn less than that?

Needless to say, almost all of them are struggling.

That same survey discovered that 46 percent of Americans don't even have 500 dollars saved up…