Another Obituary....
for the "American Dream". I have to say that there's something particularly poignant about this description of desperate mid-career professionals coming to grips with their circumstances. Draining their savings while they search for the next job that will probably never come along. Trying to use social media services like Linkedin to hopefully make the right connections. Why do I get the feeling that our society would like to choose a small percentage of the privileged to go on living while the rest of us can be killed and recycled at say 60? That would certainly solve the problems with Social Security.
The meeting room was packed. And as Ray Martinez looked around, he felt he was gazing at the rubble from a seismic shift in the American life he once trusted.
It was a recent Friday morning. More than 100 people who had recently lost middle-management jobs at New Jersey corporations had come to a hotel in New Brunswick for a lecture on how to use social media.
Many carried briefcases and laptops — trappings of the working world they longed to rejoin. But like Martinez, many also carried a belief that their once stable lives had shifted in profound ways as their careers were upended through downsizing or outsourcing, or because their employers had moved overseas or to other parts of the country.
“There has been an earthquake in America and there are many cracks,” Martinez, a former Mahwah resident who now lives in Neptune, said as he looked around the room. “I just hope I don’t fall into a crack.”
The social, political and financial tremors that Martinez described are setting an unexpectedly turbulent agenda for this year’s presidential campaign — manifesting themselves most noticeably in the anti-immigration and protectionist rhetoric of Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, and, on the Democratic side, in Sen. Bernie Sanders’ call for an economic revolution.
Read the rest here: http://www.northjersey.com/news/kelly-is-this-the-end-of-the-american-dream-1.1537357
= new reply since forum marked as read
Hillary and the DLC, BLue Dog Third way Corporate stooges will only push to shrink it and ultimately privatize everything. They are completing the Republican agenda. The current republican party is only a carnival sideshow being used for diversion.
for several decades. The several decades after the WWII had many living high, jobs were easy to find, resources were plentiful to keep things affordable, etc. The results of living relatively high is described in the article: "others traded large homes for smaller ones, or eliminated such trappings of middle-class life as summer vacations at the Jersey Shore. Some said they had all but abandoned their dreams of a comfortable retirement."
The American Dream is not people having all those "trappings." It is lots of people with nothing having a chance to do better. I think we do relatively well with that, although there are still those who aren't doing as well in that respect and deserve more help. What amazes me is this current emphasis on the "middle class." What that says to me is that folks really didn't give a darn when it was just poor people, but once adversity hit the middle class it became an issue.
When I hear people say, this will be the first generation that won't do better than the previous generation, I think that is just an adjustment to the fact the previous generation had it relatively easy (again with the exception of the poor who never really had a fair chance).
The real point to all this is that the government is going to have to pick up the pieces in essential areas such as healthcare, education, jobs, guaranteed income (some would call it "welfare"
, taxation of profits, etc. It's going to be a tough transition. And there is going to have to be a more cooperative effort among government, government and the populace to work in society's interest. It won't happen overnight, and I question rather anyone is willing to cooperate in this effort.
The sad fact is, if we took all the wealth of say the top 10%, or even 20% -- that survived after the wealth represented on paper evaporated -- and spread it around, I doubt it would help much more than a year. Then, we'd be in chaos.
I guess after almost 40 years of having relatively short jobs, working as a consultant (essentially part-time) for a number of "bosses," etc., I've just accepted it. I suspect I'll have to work until I die, although I'm going to find a way to cut back to some degree and have given up on the idea of a "comfortable retirement."
People who believe in some dream of guaranteed employment for life with income far beyond most of the world, etc., are, and have been, living a fantasy. I have all the empathy/sympathy in the world when folks hit the wall/realization, but it should have been obvious long ago to us and government. Of course, candidates who want to get elected can't be honest and tell voters the truth.
When ever I hear someone talking about 'taking' in this context I know I'm listening to someone who doesn't want to understand. But please have a great day anyways.
would you call it? I've said taxes need to be increased. My point is, if we "taxed" every penny of wealth from the 20%ers' it wouldn't get us far, so we need to figure out a way to dig ourselves out of the mess with the cooperation of "government, corporations, people." Sorry you missed that.
Read your own posts they are just a negative as mine. I didn't say there was a guarantee; what I said is there is no fucking chance at all for most to get wealthy - let alone security.
Why are you arguing with me when you are saying the exact same thing as I am.
