Pajamas Media

73 Comments

1. Sven:

We’ve been accustomed to hearing from the MSM and liberal politicians that the last 8 years under Bush have been the most miserable in the history of mankind. But, look around and see what some of the obviously less-well-off are buying: big-screen TVs, second and third cars, $150 tennis shoes, the list goes on.

I guess it’s the gummint’s fault if anyone falls short of the new American dream of acquiring whatever you want whenever you want it.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:29 am 2. Susan:

This very subject has been much on my mind lately, and you have put into words exactly what has been buzzing around in my skull. Very nicely said.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:36 am 3. jb:

You think there is a sense of entitlement now just wait till we become the “Hand-out Nation”. Why start at the bottom and work to the top when you can have the top handed to you whether you deserve it or not. Why work for a living when the next guy can work for your living. You can complain about how poor you are and how bad things are on your cell phone as you walk past and ignore the homeless person who really is poor. The people who complain the most of how we should help the poor are more times than not the stingiest people with their money. The hard left and hard right of this Country are doing their best to destroy it. Good going guys. The good news is maybe we will learn to fend for ourselves again after this generation of greedy b&stards in government, Wall Street and flako now-it-alls in Hollywood die off.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:43 am 4. Mrs. E:

This is right on the mark. One missing element: liberty. American pioneers lived in sod shacks through dry summers and cold winters…but they were free. Unfortunately, the generations since the Great Depression increasingly value financial security, material things, and now apparently income equality over liberty. We have collectively decided that the big house, the annual cruise, the shiny new cars, fill-in-the-blank, are more necessary to our pursuit of happiness than the freedom and liberty to manage our own life, come what may.

It is clear that when Obama promises to help everyone his supporters cheer because help in achievement is preferable in their world to the fierce independence (that came with hardship) preferred by our forebears.

We would rather have the high life than be free to make our own choices and live with the consequences. It looks like we’ll be getting exactly what we want: less freedom and more “help.”

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:44 am 5. rjbjrirish:

I saw a commercial for today’s Oprah. It showed a man with what appears to be teen-aged daughters, and he said he’s never had to so “no” to them until now. What kind of parent is he? My parents told me “no” plenty of times, and my wife and & I have done the same to our children. If we need something, we buy it. If we want something, we save for it. I want a digital SLR camera; I’ve been saving for it for almost a year, and soon I’ll have enough to pay for it. I’ve been using this as an example for our kids.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:47 am 6. BackwardsBoy:

We are literally bombarded with images of the good life in every commercial. All the houses have perfectly manicured lawns, moms and dads are lithe and trim, and all the kids are above average. It’s basically electronic peer pressure.
I, too, believe that cutting back on a few of life’s luxuries is good for us. It shows us that wealth is fleeting, that real happiness is not dependent on material things. We may whine for a while, but we’ll certainly begin to rediscover what our grandparents knew from their experience: happiness is family, friends, and freedom.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:57 am 7. somejoe:

Michele, thank you for this one.

A big concern of mine is how teach my children to respect work, and to give them a strong work ethic in their own lives.

While the potential for increased welfare and handouts under an Obama administration is disheartening, it could make it easier for those of us who HAVE a work ethic to get ahead of those who don’t.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:00 am 8. tanstaafl:

Well said, Ms. Catalano.

As Barack Obama told the seven year old (!) girl a few weeks ago…

“America isn’t what it once was.”

True enough, though I imagine my own my explanation of that statement would be starkly different from Obama’s. Mine would be that many people today are unfamiliar with the concepts of sustaining self and “making do” and, instead, want government to step in and, in Obama’s own words, “spread the wealth around”.

The other Michelle, Barack’s wife (the woman eating Iranian caviar in the NY hotel on the day her husband’s speech bemoaned poor New Yorkers)…she who joked about spending a $600 tax rebate check on a pair of earrings and expounded on how lazy, mean and complacent Americans are…the family with the $1.6 million Chicago mansion (plus Rezko helping out with the lot next door)…the woman whose hospital salary took a huge jump when her husband acceded to the US Senate and whose children’s ballet/piano etc. lessons run in excess of $10,000/year …wouldn’t have my take, either.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:28 am 9. John Kaduk:

This will only get worse as the country continually expands welfare programs. Why work for that orignal American Dream when someone can give it to you? And when that is no longer enough you just ask for more despite knowing that you are not demanding the government for more help but are stripping your neighbors of the fruits of their labor.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:34 am 10. Jim Baker:

Obama, the shill for the American Communist Party, does not and has never understood the American Dream. We are set to embark on a very sorry chapter in American history. We will elect this guy because he is young, smooth talking, and we hate George Bush. Wait until property rights are destroyed, elections are rigged, and confiscatory taxes are applied first to the rich, and then to ALL productive people in order to pay reparations to the “underprivileged”. We want this because we think McCain is old? We are stupid, I think.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:36 am 11. Jennifer:

Great article – I think you hit the nail on the head.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:41 am 12. momof3:

I grew up well to do, and I can’t believe the standard today’s youth (and I’m only in my 30s!) are used to living in. Everyone has a cell phone, no matter how poor. Why?? TV’s in their rooms, 5 computers per house, expensive shoes. It’s unreal. I heard no from my parents, who COULD afford it, more than I heard yes. Why? Because some things aren’t important enough to spend money on, and everyone has to make choices. No wonder people are voting for Obama, they’ve been raised their whole lives to think they should have it all, all the time, starting right now.

My kids hear no plenty too. They are happiest when they have the least things, I’ve discovered, and can use their minds to entertain themselves.

I’m happy the economy’s turning south. Maybe it will reset people’s minds a little bit. Probably not though, with the government sending out checks saying “go shop!”.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:43 am 13. jb:

I remember my first bike was after a paper route and summer of odd jobs that paid little. It was hard work but I appreciated the bike more. Clothes where hand me downs and if we wanted something we worked for it. That is how it was, we where born and lived in a house that was provided by our parents who where still married, we learned how to do everything from fixing cars to roofs and we did chores without getting an allowance for it. The kids now are no different in their abilities and they are smarter than the previous generation as it should be. It is the “Baby boomers”; me included, who have for the most part let them down. Some did what we should have and taught their children well. Some though just taught them how to be greedy, lazy whiners by the examples they set. Now it looks like it will be more of a nanny state. I will continue to teach my Grandchildren how to do things, to have pride in ones self, to be able to live without government help or intervention and after Obama or maybe McCain bankrupts this country they will be able to survive. Good luck to the rest of you.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:46 am 14. Allan Erickson:

. . . and the Founders knew that liberty was more valuable than any tangible.

http://allanerickson.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/will-we-prefer-the-calm-of-despotism/

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:48 am 15. B Dubya:

If an individual makes a lifestyle decision that ultimately brings them grief in the long run, who am I to tell them no? Provided they harm none but themselves, it is just Nature’s way of thinning out the herd, by rewarding stupid behavior with failure and possible extinction. Good for the race and good for the economy to let people fail.
It’s when gangs of folks who feel entitled to cash in MY future make decisions that my descendants will pay for that I get a little negative.
I say, seek happiness as you may, provided you earn what you keep. It is axiomatic that you should be able to keep what you earn, without worrying that some populist demagogue (one from Chicago comes immediately to mind) will take it upon himself to redistribute the fruits of my labor to his “likely voters”.
One man’s luxury is another man’s necessity, remember. Two cars in an urban environment with readily available rapid transit may very well be conspicuous consumption. Two cars in the Great Open Flyover regions, where there are 50 to 100 miles between rail stops or the next taxi, and with both spouses working is probably a financial necessity.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:54 am 16. give me a break:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.
The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain’s “Joe the plumber” analogy struck a chord.
Jim Baker,
don’t give up on McCain just yet. lol

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:55 am 17. michele:

tanstaafl, that story about Michelle Obama is not true.

http://twurl.nl/5rvkux

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:04 pm 18. Will Sharpe:

I think a vital part of this American Dream story is not covered: what exactly is the make-up of the American workforce & what’s being produced today versus when that “Dream” was thriving? This American Dream came to fruition in the 1950’s after World War II. The economy was booming and unemployment was virtually nonexistent. What we were producing were tangible goods & services. The difference now is that many Americans are shelling money around in circles–while not producing anything tangible. As a result, we had a weakness for exploiting a subprime mortgage market that propelled us into the economic downturn we’re now experiencing. If America is to redefine and refocus its pursuit of the American Dream, as the author defines it, it has to begin with our labor force producing goods and services that can compete in a global market–not simply rerouting mass amounts of money through government, risky investments, or the like with the hopes that everyone will receive an American Dream by cutting corners. I think the transition of American labor from post-1945 to now is a vital part of this discussion, and we should not leave it out.

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:12 pm 19. Marina:

Do the omamaniacs realy think socialism will make everyone rich spreading the wealth around? NO-O-O-O-O-O-O… that’ll make everyone poor. Socialism is never about the wealth, it’s always about the poverty. Look at the socialist countries: who wants to live in Laos, Vietnam (thanks, hippies!), N-Korea etc.? They have already spread all the possible wealth around. Nothing to spread, let’s eat our shoes. Congratulation, Obamatrons, that’s change we really can believe in, but we needn’t to: those countries already exist. Thank you, Obama! Change the world? Great! the whole world will become one great Zimbabwe! Or North Korea! Thank you! Thank you very much! And go and … yourself!

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:23 pm 20. Will Sharpe:

Jim Baker: “Wait until property rights are destroyed, elections are rigged, and confiscatory taxes are applied first to the rich, and then to ALL productive people in order to pay reparations to the “underprivileged”.”

This is convoluted thinking beyond repair. Many elections are already rigged, first off. Secondly, jumping to the conclusion that the richest of the rich facing a tax increase will result in a permanent taxation of “ALL productive people” is a fatuous remark. If Obama’s tax or property rights policies are put to the test and fail miserably, he’ll face repercussions that will eventually eradicate these changes. Granted the government responds slowly to changes in taxation, but if disaster strikes, as you predict, it will not be the first or last time disaster has propelled our government into action (in fact it’s the only time our government is seemingly propelled into action) nor will it be the end of America. No need to be so melodramatic–we already have two presidential campaigns doing that for us.

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:23 pm 21. Lisa Paul:

Great essay, Michele. Wish I could find and cite the article I read recently that said that much of people’s perception of “falling behind” is due to the higher perceived requirement for doing well i.e. several new cars, bigger homes, lots of stuff. Growing up in what was perceived at in the Sixties as upper middle class (which back then was largely defined by education not income) we had a modest home by today’s standards, one TV, one car and every school year each of us kids got up to five outfits and two pair of shoes for school — but only if we’d grown out of the stuff we had last year. Extra money was plowed into college funds, not more stuff. And we had modest allowances that we received if we did all our chores. Now kids think they are on the poverty line without iPhones, their own bedroom suites and their own TV and cars.

That said, it can’t be denied that home prices and the cost of education– key components of the American Dream — are outstripping wage increases.

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:41 pm 22. portia9:

Love your article, and great point. The American Dream has been perverted and that has led to the awful sense of entitlement that seems to be rampant now. It has also led to the housing bubble which burst and is taking the whole economy down with it. How did we get here?

I think we were led by the media, which is forever lowering intellectual standards by aiming at the lowest common denominator. The media sells us a fantasy life and presents it as “The Real World.” Now the media is giving us our President. The same people sold on the New American Dream by the media are now being sold on “Change We Need.” We didn’t need iPhones, Manolo Blahniks, quartz countertops, or Aston Martins. We don’t need Obama. Mostly what we need is to turn off the TV. And then vote for John McCain. And pray to whatever god we think is stronger than the media.

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:43 pm 23. Armchair General:

We live in the age where pre-teens expect cars for their 16th birthday and shows like My Super Sweet 16 show the filthiest most spoiled brats in America getting pissed when they ONLY get an SUV for their 16th birthday instead of a sports car. It is no wonder that with role models like this, and parents unable or unwilling to say no, our youngsters continue on through life expecting this is the way things are. When is the last time you saw anything in society which promoted waiting until you could afford it before purchasing?

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:43 pm 24. Howard:

PERCEPTION IS NOT NECESSARILY REALITY … DON’T BELIEVE THE POLLS …
Obama supporters act as if the polls are a true reflection of what’s going to happen on November 4th. Obama has consistently tried to win each of his elections prior to a single vote being cast, by eliminating his opponenets on technicalities, or having the DNC dump Hillary, or by giving the false impression that he already won, before the election has even taken place. When you don’t have an actual record to run on … and all you can do is point out problems, and blame others, as Obama has, you have to rely on gimmicks that have nothing to do with your actual ability to lead … like accusations of racism ad nauseam … like early voting …busing and indoctrinating homeless people on the way to the polls … photo ops with big crowds … spending 4 to 1 on advertising … having the media in the tank … having Hollywood in the tank, having Acorn in the tank … and, having 98% of all black voters in the tank. But, all of these things are nothing more than a fabricated perception. They have nothing to do with a person’s experience, or ability to lead. They just reveal a candidate who will say, or do anything to get elected. That’s why the Obamabots are so worried. That’s why Obama is telling his disciples not to get over confident. That’s why the Obama campaign tries real hard to make it look like Obama has already won … just like they did in the run against Hillary in the primaries. I happen to believe there are legions of people who are going to vote for McCain on November 4th … unlike the ‘in your face’ Obama supporters, November 4th is when the McCain supporters will express themselves. A vote for Obama is a vote for voter fraud, corrupt media, and a road to socialism. Keep America safe and strong, elect McCain/Palin on November 4th.

Oct 22, 2008 - 1:47 pm 25. tanstaafl:

I guess you mean the caviar and lobster story, Michele.

Tho’ your link didn’t work for me, I see where “page six” has retracted it.

Either way, Michelle Obama’s take on America (when she isn’t being muzzled) seems to closely parallel that of the guy who performed her marriage and baptized her 2 daughters, Mr. Goddamn America.

I would speculate that Michelle is a big part of the reason the family stayed loyal to that church for 2 decades.

Oct 22, 2008 - 1:53 pm 26. Ditto:

Michele Catalano wrote: “…with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement…”

There are those who have no desire to work for and achieve everything they are able to do. They prefer sitting back and having it dealt out to them at others’ expense. In a Nanny State, why should they work? In their own minds, it is better to receive than to push one’s self beyond one’s limits and find out what is truly possible. We were told in my Stats 2 class last night that we didn’t have to do problems X, Y and Z. I did them anyway. I’m richer for having done them because I came to understand a concept that had eluded me until then. Plus, I learned that I could achieve more than I originally gave myself credit for.

To #12. momof3: Your parents are to be admired, and thank God there are parents like you and like my daughter, too, who understand that a strong work ethic must be taught to children throughout their formative years. It’s one of the biggest dangers of generational welfare… nobody learns how to be free in that environment. Remaining qualified to do nothing becomes a covert operation that often requires more work than if a person just went out and got a job.

Nice article – thank you.

Oct 22, 2008 - 2:04 pm 27. Anonymous:

I have 2 kids, 11 & 9. They don’t get a lot of stuff. They don’t have phones, video games, iPods, or the like, but they are absolutely the happiest kids around. Other folks love having my kids come over, because they are so happy and full of life. Sometimes they’ll play video games or the like, but most times, they’ll get the other kids to go out and play or do other things. That’s another reason the other parents like having my kids come over: they teach the other kids how to PLAY.

They have a roof over their heads, adequate food, decent inexpensive clothes, occasional minor luxuries, solid discipline, and lots of love. We are far happier than many who have much more. “Life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” isn’t all that complicated. The confusion comes from substituting materialism for that.

I love the Tyler Cycle explanation of the course societies take: Bondage> Spirituality> Freedom> Affluence> Selfishness> Apathy> Dependence> Bondage. Our nation is clearly moving completely into dependence. Bondage is sure to follow. Eventually, when times get really bad, we will return to spirituality, reestablishing our sense of morals and values.

Affluence always leads us away from God and into self-indulgence, then tyranny, and tyranny leads us back to God. The current ascendance of the left is in direct corellation to the lowered attendance of church/temple. We could theoretically skip the dependence/bondage parts of the cycle by getting people back into church. If you want to truly address the problem, bring someone with you to church.

Oct 22, 2008 - 2:21 pm 28. Jim Baker:

Will Sharpe, Are you saying we should elect Obama so that we can straighten out the messes after he makes them?
I believe that we do survive the worst of our Presidents, but I also believe that the casualty along the way is our personal liberties.

Oct 22, 2008 - 2:25 pm 29. kelly k:

A few days ago, my local paper (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) published yet another “death of the American dream” article. IMO, it’s just another variation on the leftist mantra that everything is wrong all the time.

But it did get me thinking. I remember when I got out of college, listening to my mom and aunts talk about my older cousins. My cousins were all getting married, buying their first houses, etc. My mom and aunts could not understand why “people just starting out” needed to have four-bedroom homes in expensive suburbs, two luxury cars, closets full of clothes, and other expensive habits–especially when they’d then turn around and complain that they had no money. It was baffling to the generation who thought they had it made with one decent house, one car, and one vacation every year.

I don’t think the American dream has faded. I think our connection to reality has.

Oct 22, 2008 - 3:00 pm 30. Sven:

realitycheq:

Your pathological hatred of Gov. Palin is disturbing.

Way to take a non-partisan topic that everyone across the political spectrum can somewhat agree with and throw in your three paragraphs of vitriolic bile.

Perhaps you should turn ON that ONE TV in your house, tune it to TV-Land, and put on an episode of “The Waltons”. That may lower your blood pressure to a safe level.

Oct 22, 2008 - 3:45 pm 31. USAF Captain:

realitycheq writes:

“But I have started worrying about poor Sarah Palin and her family. If McCain loses, and I think he will, then what will happen to her? She may be out of her job as Governor of Alaska; if not now, then by 2010. Will the RNC and/or the wealthy McCains continue to provide for Sarah? Some how I don’t think so. I think it is time for all Palin supporters to come together, create a non-profit organization and collect charitable contributions to maintain the lifestyle of the rich and famous that Sarah Palin and her family have now grown accustomed to. Because, after all, is there no one more deserving of ‘The American Dream’ than Sarah Palin?”

Reality..I’d sure like to be a forensic accountant with access to the Obama/DNC campaign’s books. I am sure that experience would resemble a tour of an abattoir. Not saying that are any better or worse than Republicans; this is, after all, politics and I am sure with almost a trillion being thrown around, there’s a few Chanel or Brooks Brothers’ suits, champagne, and caviar being bought for the participants.

..but God bless you for your concern for Sarah and Todd. I am sure they will do just fine in the upcoming years, thank you.

[/end sarcasm]

Oct 22, 2008 - 4:23 pm 32. cedarford:

I have to join Will Sharpe. For years the “Free Trade, Supply Sider, Regulation Bad!” Republicans (joined by Dem Elites) have claimed for almost 3 decades that the disaster ordinary Americans see happening to national industry and our competitive systems “Don’t Matter!”

1. Loss of our ability to make things and sell them globally doesn’t matter because we are now “post-industrial” and we are “selling our creativity globally in areas like financial instruments too complicated for other countries to emulate us.”
2. It doesn’t matter because “we have the #1 military”. We’re #1!!
3. People at the top are getting vastly rich on importing China goods and either creating mortgage derivatives or being paid princely sums to insure those derivatives while wages of the bottom 90% of Americans stagnate or decline “doesn’t matter” because “wealth always trickles down!”.
4. Rotting away of America’s global edge it once enjoyed in telecom, transportation infrastructure, health care for the masses, mass education – “doesn’t matter” because poor Mexicans and Muslim and African refugees pouring across our Borders show “We Are Still the Envy of the World.”
5. Going from the world’s greatest creditor nation to the world’s greatest debtor nation – now dependent on signing IOU paperwork for 2 billion a day just to keep our government and military empires going “doesn’t matter!”. Because – you see – we will soon be selling “green energy solutions” or “exciting nanotech technology ” – presumably to the same countries that we sold off our electronics, advanced manufacturing, metallurgical, auto, automated textile tech to…
6. And we must be rich, because what other country besides Iraq was building palaces for the powerful? And better than Iraq under Saddam, we also managed to build 400K mini-mansions and put illegal aliens or ex-welfare mammies with a steady job writing parking tickets in those homes?

No, I agree with Sharpe that we have to wake up from the self-delusion. The American Dream is slipping away. Tax cuts favoring the rich, huge government pork on money borrowed from China for wealthy donors, and trickledown haven’t worked as advertised. We see no economic benefit from being the world’s 9/11 provider and “Giver of Democracy and Freedom” to oppressed people wishing us dead. Neither has the other Party’s position that we can have that – but only if we do massive Gov’t subsidies for non-productive citizens, unskilled, and spawn of illegals. That hasn’t worked either, because when people have to pay no taxes and get huge services and money from taxpayers go over 50% of the population, their appetite becomes endless, and their vote is the majority vote in cities and whole regions of the nation.

This ecnomic collapse is only the beginning of the Wake-Up call. Since the collapse is associated with Republican Wall Street, free traders, globalists, and Reagan supply-side voodoo economics – the Republicans will pay the 1st pound of flesh. Then after a few years of Democrats reminding us that their encouragement of parasitism is also destroying the American Dream – they will pay, too.

But abandoning those deceptive dreams pushed by both Parties will take years. And America will become almost obsessional in doing what it has to do to recapture the American Dream. What works will be kept. What doesn’t – like 20 year court delays to build a power plant, Open Borders, free trade that kills jobs here, even parts of the US Constitution that erode America – will have to be scrapped.

It’s unsustainable, and

Oct 22, 2008 - 4:56 pm 33. Someone75:

It is my American Dream to blow $150,000 on designer clothing in three separate trips while everyone else is suffering. I hope to flaunt my wealth (or money I got from campaign contributions) in front of my failing country.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:27 pm 34. Robohobo:

To those that all you can do is whine and complain about Palin or Bush or American excess or …..whatever:

You are those this story talks about. We live in an age of MIRACLES.

Instantaneous global communication.
Huge lifelike picture TV sets that beam in LIVE pictures of the Olympics, the World Series and varied entertainment on 200+ channels in many languages.
Devices that store days and weeks of music and video on them that fit in your shirt pocket.
Phone/email devices that fit in the other shirt pocket.
Cars that go 100k+ miles between tune-ups.
Air travel that can take you almost anywhere in the world in less than a day.
Modern medicine that extends life well beyond what we could in just the recent past. And it is good life too.

I could go on for a long time.

And we are going to elect a President (maybe) who thinks that all of this has to be made better because not everyone can have it all? He is an ungrateful pup, I think. He needs some lessons in real humility. Lessons in the real world. He needs to see the rest of the world from the ground not the lofty reaches of the glitteRATi and the super rich.

Or are we going to elect someone who has suffered for something he believes in? The real Hero?

Those like Someone75 or realitycheq just sound like petulant whining children. I bet real bad people would make them wet themselves. Go back under your bridges, trolls.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:15 pm 35. Joseph Marshall:

I think there is, frankly, a lot of hooey in the notions that we have lost our work ethic, or that we are more materialistic and less responsible than we have been in the past.

First of all, there are now basically two Americas: 3/5 of all households who make below about $70,000 yr, and 2/5 of us who make above that level. What has happened to these two groups over the past 30 years has been so completely different that it is as if they were living in a different country.

From 1979 until now the real family income of the lower 3/5 has risen only 7.6%. The real family income of the upper 2/5 has risen by 39%. Yes I mean thirty-nine percent.

At the moment, that lower 3/5 controls less than 20% of the entire “net worth” of the USA and less than 15% of the “net financial assets”.

This particular aggregation of unequal wealth and the corresponding vision of a luxurious “lifestyle” is no more than 35 years old. It has been manufactured by the conscious political choices of the people who have governed us, and the corresponding choice of those people by majority vote in free elections. We broke it, so we bought it.

In other words, over 4/5 of the wealth of this country is now in the hands of 2/5 of its citizens, where it wasn’t before.

What that means is simple: the life of McMansions, Lincoln Expeditions, private schools for children, personal swimming pools, first class tickets, and so on, is not a dream for 2 out of 5 of us. For them, it is the American Reality. The exaggerated and luridly perfect version of it you see in the television ads has one purpose only: to sell things to that upper 2/5ths of us. But the upper 2/5ths of us can actually afford them, if not all of them at once.

The other 3/5 of us do not matter to the advertisers of that lurid fantasy. Why? Because we control less than 1/5 of the wealth. As the bank robber once said when they asked him why he robbed banks,”That’s where the money is.”

For most of the rest of us some greater or lesser version of the “white picket fence” of yore is already the American Reality. We have cars, we have homes, we have jobs, we have postage stamp size lawns, we take a vacation once a year, ect.

You cannot dream about what you already have.

How does the lower 3/5ths hang onto this? Through work.

Americans work longer, harder, for less real renumeration, and with less leisure than any other workforce in the industrialized world. Period.

So the “time was when Americans believed in the rewards of hard work and sacrifice, but no longer” is a sanctimonious myth. Hard work and sacrifice are our daily bread.

What isn’t a myth is the fact that for 3/5’s of us, all that work has bought is only a little more and little better than we had 30 years ago. Only 7.6% more and better in fact.

We all encounter the fact of hard work, but 3/5 of us also encounter the fact that all that hard work has not achieved that all much.

Why? Well, among other reasons, American “productivity” has increased 100% between 1973 and 2007. The family income of the 3/5 who are doing about 50% of the work has only increased 7.6%.

This should make it perfectly clear why the family income of the upper 2/5 has risen 39%. The profits of all that increased productivity must go somewhere, and that’s where they go–into the hands of the upper 2/5 of us–on the order of 5 times more of it than the lower 3/5. How is this wealth accumulated? Also through hard work.

But, it isn’t accumulated through five times more hard work. As an aside, family income of the top 5% of us has risen 81%. They probably work just as much as the rest of us–there are really very few truly lazy Americans–but they really aren’t doing ten times more hard work.

How has this wealth been concentrated over the past 30 years? Through economic policies that overwhelmingly favor speculation in common stocks rather than saving in bank deposits. Stocks are the only investments that now offer a serious possibility of profit and have been so for decades.

But the lower 3/5 of us have no business getting near common stocks, because we cannot weather the downside risks–such as we have seen recently.

So what of all that “saving from our hard earned pay” that our nannies tell us we should be doing?

Between 1979 and 1982, 6 month CD’s paid, on average, 12% interest yearly. Between 2001 and 2007 the average interest was 3% or less. This fact has essentially made serious accumulation of long term wealth an unrealistic dream for all but the upper 2/5 of us who can stand the risks of common stocks, and a normal and natural part of life for those lucky workingstiffs.

So “making do with less” means a far different thing to some of us than to most of us. For most of us have been “making do with very little more” and with very little chance of very much more for over a generation. And this has been so no matter how hard we have worked, or whatever discretionary income we might happen to have saved–which is likely to be not very much at very little profit.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:24 pm 36. Red Blooded American:

This is by far the most thoughtful and best-written article I have ever read on this site. Thank you.

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:46 pm 37. Sandra M:

Sarah Palin dresses like a Governor or CEO. Whoever has chosen her wardrobe has done a fabulous job. No little Chanel suits which scream “lunch lady”as other political women wear. Her clothes are those of a professional woman and draw all attention up to that beautiful face.

If she and her family were not well-dressed, the left would be sneering at them for that.

When she is Vice-President, this elegant wardrobe will serve her well.

I am more and more convinced that Palin will drag McCain over the finish line. I think of the four candidates, having her as President would by far be best. If a military emergency came up, she would call General Petraeus. If a diplomatic emergency came up and Obama were President, he would call together the advisors we saw him with today, “stars” who agree on nothing and have diva-sized egos. By the time, agreement was reached, bombs would have landed on us. Had Obama settled for a few advisers that would have made more sense, but Obama went in for overkill.

I look forward to Michelle Obama subbing for him while he goes off to Hawaii. THAT will definitely drive his poll numbers south.

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:55 pm 38. Marc Malone:

Joseph Marshall – While some of your points might seem valid to some, I must disagree.

Firstly, that 7.6% is above inflation, which means an overall improvement. It also doesn’t factor in health care benefits, the cost of which is ridiculously high. These benefits are real income, although offset by healthcare costs. This area is the main cause of the financial stress in people’s lives, knowing it can make or break you.

Secondly, high prime interest rates make the high returns on CD’s. Low interest rates may make it hard to accumulate capital, but it also makes things more affordable, like houses.

Thirdly, it doesn’t take 5 times more hard work to produce 5 times more income. A baseball player with a .300 average makes many, many times as much as one who bats .275, because he enables victory. It’s the same in the marketplace. 5-10% more efficiency allows one to provide better value, and allows you to absolutely dominate the market. That’s why the 2/5 are doing better than the 3/5.

Fourthly, most people do NOT work hard. they just think they do. I used to always work myself out of jobs, by streamlining the process. After I’d leave, it would eventually become less efficient, and it would take two people to do my old job. Sometimes that would happen right away, just because fo the sheer amount of work I’d put out. My sisters are the same way.

The thing is, there is a difference between hard work and working hard. It requires work AND ambition to really produce at maximum. “Joe the Plumber” is the very embodiment of that. He works long hours at work that can be physically difficult, and he has dreams! Do you have any doubt that someday he will become quite prosperous?

The fact is more people in this country have become quite well-to-do in the years you cited. Many have not, but the lower portions include a very large number of recent immigrants. The hard-working, AMBITIOUS people HAVE moved up, because a low-tax policy has made it possible.

The thing to remember is that it IS possible. You gotta want it BADLY. It’s not supposed to be easy to “get ahead”. You have to do more than the lower half; the very definition of “getting ahead”. Ahead of whom? The other half.

For the record, if you ever work with today’s youth, you’ll find that they don’t really know how to work hard. They don’t learn it growing up, so don’t learn it until their late-20’s or so. That’s why the youth are swarming to Obama. They don’t know better, and it’s not just inexperience. It’s about work ethic. Don’t believe me? Try hiring a 20-yr-old to do some work for you. You’ll be appalled.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:24 pm 39. Ciprian:

Hello,

I am a Romanian who has just come back to his country from two years of Graduate School at East Tennessee State University, opportunity for which I am very thankful to the American tax-payers who have offered me a scholarship.

After reading your sublime article about the simplicity of the American Dream and the sense of entitlement more and more Americans feel these days, I cannot help but remember that Romanians have never had a shot at that dream. And also, cannot help but remember the sense of entitlement coming out from SOME of the classes I took at (incredibly)ETSU.

I am from an ex-communist country, where the marxist-leninist idiotic utopies have been well tested on my grandfather, whose land was taken and put into “collective property” and who was sent two years in jail for protesting; he came out almost deaf from the beatings, and on my father who (as late as 1987 was indicted and almost sent to prison for refusing to spy on his French guests).

My American friends, please don’t go there! Twenty years after communism fell, that feeling of entitlement is still crippling the spirit of some of my compatriots. Please, don’t let yourself fooled by the empty rhetoric of the quasi-socialist in your classrooms. They don’t know s**t about what that means when you put it in practice.

Romanians have always dreamt of going to America, the land of opportunity. Please, don’t dream of becoming the Socialist Republic of Romania!

After so much time of being lost in ideology Romanians are taking a stab at the American Dream. We have a flat income tax of 16 percent, regardless if you are a person or a business and Romania is flourishing with foreign investments pouring in from all sides and the economy growing through the roof. Unemployment is very low and only if you are lazy you cannot work. I don’t understand why you won’t have that. My marketing professor at ETSU, Dr. Ronald Weir said he could only dream for the U.S. to have a tax system like in Romania.

And one more thing. During a class at ETSU I just had to raise this question to the overwhelming opposition of American students. I asked them: “Why do you hate your country so much? I’ve always loved it and I’m not even American”

Oct 23, 2008 - 1:36 am 40. Marc Malone:

Ciprian – Welcome back. I hope you choose to become a citizen. I’ve met a couple other Romanians, but they didn’t seem to have your attitude. They’d been too indoctrinated. Glad to have you.

Oct 23, 2008 - 1:54 am 41. Ed Wallis:

Dear “Ciprian,”

THANK YOU for your most insightful perspective and WARNING!

I only wish more Americans would heed such experiences of others like you.

Best wishes for your future.

*** McCAIN / PALIN ‘08 !!! ***

Oct 23, 2008 - 1:58 am 42. Ciprian:

Marc,actually, I said I came back to Romania after I finished my studies. I want to contribute to my own country’s growth and apply some of the principles I’ve seen in the U.S. Many people here in Romania are second-guessing my choice of not remaining in the U.S. but, of course, I would like to live my life alongside my family, even if I would probably be more appreciated in your country .

But the U.S. experience has been mind-changing and I am dreaming to take coast-to-coast trip in the future with some of my friends there.

Some Romanians in the U.S. miss home very very much and some of them are taking it on your country, unconsciously blaming it for “luring” them in, with its prosperity. But, the vast majority of Romanians I’ve met in the U.S. appreciate it and have conservative values, although they might engage in some Bush-bashing of their own (but that’s just a trend set up by watching too much TV).

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:45 am 43. Donna V.:

The “I’m entitled” mentality helps explain why so many young people shrug and sneer when one brings up Obama’s paper-thin resume. After all, these 20-somethings have paper-thin resumes themselves and yet they believe they’re entitled to $70,000 starting salaries, fab condos, great cars – but please no overtime, they need a lot of personal time too. I don’t think it’s wrong to want to be rich – this is America. It’s wrong to expect riches to be handed to you without putting in a lot of hard work and toil – and knowing that in a free economy, there are no guarantees.

The conceited younger generation scoffs at the idea of putting in time and paying your dues – so of course, Obama is their dream candidate.

Thanks, fellow boomers, for raising a generation even more spoiled than we were – stuffed to the brim with “self-esteem” without having actually accomplished anything.

Oct 23, 2008 - 4:11 am 44. jb:

To those talking about Sarah Palin’s suits. $600,000,000 Obama. How much do his suits cost? Is he going to donate them like Gov. Palin? What did Sen. Clinton do with her suits? Are you people so infused with hatred that all you see is evil in the other party? This was a good conversation till you threw in that garbage. Why don’t you go somewhere else if you hate us so much on this site? Your comments use to be humorous but now they just take up space that we scroll past them. So, get out of your mom’s basement, off her computer and get a job. Don’t write back saying you have a job because I know your lying.

Oct 23, 2008 - 6:35 am 45. momof3:

Governor Palin got some job-appropriate clothes bought for her. Whoo-peee. If the DNC HASN’T paid for Obama’s and Michelle’s clothes, it’s only because they claimed 4.2 MILLION in income last year alone. And yet they supposedly speak for the poor? Personally, I’m sure that some of that what, 500 million now? that Obama has raised has gone to things other than TV time. Who cares? You can’t run for VP in kmart jeans. The media would laugh you out of town.

And guess what, candidates don’t have to pay for their own campaigning. So no, she didn’t pay for her own hotel. Why should she? No one else does. Hold your twisted little mirror up to your own candidate and she was reflects.

Oct 23, 2008 - 6:41 am 46. pat:

Catholic Bishop Against Obama Obama sicks the IRS on HIM
WASHINGTON — A church-state watchdog group has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether the Roman Catholic bishop of Paterson, N.J., violated tax laws by denouncing Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama.
In a letter sent to the IRS on Wednesday (Oct. 22), Americans United for Separation of Church and State accused Paterson Bishop Arthur Serratelli of illegal partisanship for lambasting Obama’s support of abortion rights.

In a column posted on the Diocese of Paterson’s website and published in its weekly newspaper, Serratelli also compared Obama to King Herod, the biblical monarch who ordered the death of John the Baptist.

The bishop did not refer to Obama by name but only as “the present democratic (sic) candidate.”

Under federal tax law, nonprofit groups — including religious organizations — are prohibited from intervening in campaigns for public office by endorsing or opposing candidates.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: New Jersey | Catholic Church | Roman Catholic Church | Sen. Barack Obama | Catholics | Internal Revenue Service | Washington-based | Baptist | New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani | United for Separation of Church | Rev. Barry Lynn | King Herod | Diocese of Paterson | Freedom of Choice Act
Serratelli wrote that Obama has pledged, if elected president, to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, abortion-rights legislation the Catholic Church vehemently opposes.

“If this politician fulfills his promise, not only will many of our freedoms as Americans be taken from us, but the innocent and vulnerable will spill their blood,” Serratelli wrote.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, president of Americans United, said it is “impossible to interpret this passage as anything but a command to vote against ‘the present Democratic candidate’ because of his promise to sign a certain piece of legislation disfavored by the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.”

The Paterson diocese said Serratelli’s column was focused on proposed abortion legislation, not the upcoming presidential election.

Oct 23, 2008 - 7:38 am 47. Ditto:

You know, I knew at some point somebody would bring up Gov. Palin’s clothing. Executives do spend some money on wardrobe. The thing about a good wardrobe piece is it’s considered foundational. It isn’t like, say, a splashy world tour that really doesn’t have anything to do with a U.S. election or running through incredible sums of money so quickly that you have to go do a fund raiser to continue your campaign.

It isn’t like the excesses of Hollywood where hundreds of thousands are spent on a single night for a dress, shoes, facial, hairdo and jewelry so a starlet can walk out on the red carpet. Or the amount of money Al Gore runs through in his not-so-eco-friendly home. Wardrobe is foundational. It’s a necessity. If the only thing the press can come up with to hate Gov. Palin about is her clothing bill, after all that time and money spent in Alaska digging for dirt on her, you guys really should just hang it up.

Oct 23, 2008 - 9:16 am 48. Will Sharpe:

Jim Baker: “Will Sharpe, Are you saying we should elect Obama so that we can straighten out the messes after he makes them?
I believe that we do survive the worst of our Presidents, but I also believe that the casualty along the way is our personal liberties.”

I’m definitely not saying we should elect either president based on the notion that one possesses the tailor-made, well-defined solution to our economic crisis. Rather, I was simply positing that jumping to the conclusion all productive members of society will face eventually tax increases to accomodate for the “underprivileged” under Obama is a false notion. I think the economic proposals by both candidates are virtually unapplicable to our current state, and they’re both using their positions as band-aids rather than viable remedies.

However, I also firmly believe and agree that our civil/personal liberties are slowly eroding and our country is seemingly moving down the path toward something resembling the European Union. Now, as to how conerned we should be about this I cannot answer, but I imagine you will not withhold an answer here.

Oct 23, 2008 - 9:29 am 49. Joseph Marshall:

Mark Malone

Of course 7.6% is a real gain. But you have to remember that this 7.6% over thirty years. That means .25% above inflation per year. Take 39% over thirty years and you get 1.3% per year. Take 81% and you get 2.7% per year. What makes this difference is the differential amount that can be invested in relative security by each of these groups in the stock market.

Now, home ownership is a nice thing, but it is not a stable investment. Home “equity” is a chimera, based solely on the assumption that house values will always rise. We have just watched the fact that this assumption is false.

Housing ownership is a market, like any other. But you cannot just unload a home when the market looks to be turning sour, like you can a stock or a mutual fund portfolio. Why? Because you are involved with repaying the money you borrowed to acquire the home in the first place. And many people are now trapped in what is essentially negative equity.

Moreover even if home values kept rising infinitely, home equity is an illusion. If you take out a 30 year loan for $100,000 at 6% fixed [not uncommon figures for the lower 3/5 of us] you will actually end up paying about $200,000 for that $100,000 loan. I’m not kidding. You can use an online mortgage calculator and check this for yourself.

What this means is that the “break even” point on your investment would be a 100% increase in your home’s value over 30 years. Any less than that and you are looking at a net loss.

Apartment rental over that same 30 years would end up costing you about the same $100,000 as you borrowed for the home. Invest the $100,000 you paid to service the debt conservatively, over time, in the stock market and your profit would average about 10% yearly. With compounding this would grow to somewhere over $1,000,000 in that 30 year span. And this is just with a simple buy-and-hold strategy.

My point is that bank deposits offer nothing like that level of return to most of us, and we simply cannot accomodate the risk levels of stocks, particularly when we are already burdened with a home mortgage.

The dream of home ownership is a lovely thing, but the reality of home ownership is that it is a very expensive hobby. If you enjoy the hobby, that’s fine, but if you expect to make money with it, you are deceived.

I also don’t believe the notion that youth comprehend hard work any less than they did formerly. I have heard exactly the same complaint about young people for the last 50 years. The complaint was correct, I had no great understanding of the relation of work to decent living at 20 either. No one knows the value or the point of work until they start working and paying bills.

“The thing is, there is a difference between hard work and working hard. It requires work AND ambition to really produce at maximum.”

It also requires understanding of how to work efficiently, as well as belief that the point of life is “production at maximum”. And insofar as it is possible to gain from even the most efficient work alone, that surplus is relatively small. The real gains come from investing the surplus, which means making the money work rather than you.

The upper 2/5 simply have more opportunity to get more work out of their money for more profit.

To understand this, you must look back past the last 30 years to the 30 years before that. What you find is astounding, particularly if you didn’t live through it. Between 1947 and 1979 all</i.levels of society gained in household income at about the same rate. Moreover, that rate was between 99-116%!!!

This is three times the gain that either the 3/5 or the 2/5 of this country has made in the following 30 years. Not not only did everybody acquire more, even the top 2/5 acquired more over that 30 years.

Now I would point out that 1947-1979 was exactly the period of Democratic Party dominance in America and of proactive regulation of markets in the public interest.

And 1980-2008 have been exactly the years of the “get government off our backs” deregulatory orgy of the Reagan Revolution.

The numbers tell the tale. The Reagan Revolution has virtually obliterated the real economic opportunities of the lowest 3/5 of us. And it’s even been less profitble for the upper 2/5 of us.

From any standpoint, that is failure. Unregulated “free market” economics combined with insane government deficts to fund tax reductions simply hasn’t worked.

And now the public as a whole are finally beginning to figure that out.

Oct 23, 2008 - 11:07 am 50. Someone75:

momof3:

Are you serious? $150k on clothing? That seems appropriate to you? Next time, please not to be so transparent in your desperation.

Robohobo:

Why don’t you take a look around at your own post before you label me a whiner. You guys are the ones crying foul at every opportunity. No one likes a sore loser.

Oct 23, 2008 - 12:27 pm 51. Nine-of-Diamonds:

“No one likes a sore loser.”

As he whines about SP’s clothes.

Oct 23, 2008 - 12:56 pm 52. Sue:

When you remove rules and morals from any given population, then you have nothing but “entitled” citizens who feel everything should be theirs for the asking. Our most recent “entitled” generation has hit the work places all over America and want to be “catered” to; they don’t feel they should work more than they want, at hours they choose; and, they want more pay than what is offered. Welcome to Amerika of 2009 and beyond!

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:12 pm 53. Sandy Salt:

Once again you guys take the opportunity to attack each other and just blow hot air back and forth. The American dream is dead. People have that dream and now they want more. That is okay if they are willing to work to achieve their dream. There are huge issues facing this country and we sit arguing about clothes for a VP candidate. The reason that this isn’t an issue for anyone else in the campaign is that they are all very rich and can afford whole new wardrobes for seven people at the drop of a hat. Those of you who think that Gov. Palin isn’t middle class enough because they spent $150k on clothes for the entire family and for her many appearences on TV, but the fact that the RNC has to come up with the money shows you that they didn’t have it. If they had the money don’t you think they would have spent it vice inviting all this BS. Of course, if Gov. Palin was ever seen wearing the same outfit or an illfitting suit she would be labelled and unqualified hick from Alaska, so damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Enjoy your dumbass discourse on the wardrobe, but I am going to worry about the future of this country. Tough times are ahead regardless of who is elected and we as a nation are not prepared to deal with that reality. So cry me a river about your iPods, cell phones and Lexus, while employment steadly rises and interest rates to follow. If you don’t remember the late 70’s they weren’t a lot of fun and they will seem like a wonderland compared to the next four years.

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:33 pm 54. Andrew Wolinski:

Hey we are losing sight of that dream and only John McCain can get it back

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:37 pm 55. Andrew Wolinski:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBX2ec7c81E

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:38 pm 56. BJM:

Joseph Marshall:

I think there is, frankly, a lot of hooey

Yeah and you’re spouting it. How do you think those of us who were not born to the manor got the 39% increase? I was the first person in my family to go to college and I paid for it without a single loan or grant. I worked 60-80 hr weeks and didn’t take a vacation for over ten years. I put my earnings back into my business not a big house, flashy cars or consumer crap. It wan’t much fun at times I’ll tell you, but now it is very satisfying and worth every late night hour, crappy business trip and worry about payroll. I’ve earned my place in the 2/3.

So I don’t buy your defeatist premise as I’m living proof of the fallacy in your position and there are tens of millions more like me.

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:33 pm 57. Joseph Marshall:

BJM

At what point in this period of time did you cross the $70,000 per year personal income threshold? Before that point, how much money were you truly able to “put into your business” as opposed to “sweat equity”?

Were you really able to capitalise that business completely on your own, from the very beginning, or did you require borrowed money at any point? If so, who did you borrow it from? And when did you pay it back?

You say you didn’t buy a “big house”? Were you a homeowner with a mortgage at all, or did you rent? Did you have a family during this period, and if you did, how well did they adapt to your austere lifestyle?

Neither you, I, nor anyone else can evaluate the genuine reasons for your success until questions like this get answered.

For example, you clearly have the capacity for hard work and frugality that leads to business success. But I would also suggest that you have the talent for it as well. Like any other talent, some people have more than others.

Surely your experience will tell you that there are people out there who should never even try to take your route to success, no matter how hard they are willing to work or how much they are willing to sacrifice. In fact, you probably have a couple on your own payroll.

Assuming an individual doesn’t have business sense, but is willing to make the personal sacrifice, where should they put their excess cash that they acquire through all their hard work? And how much opportunity do they really have to make it grow? For if they don’t put it to work somewhere they will never even come close to your success, whatever the sacrifices.

My point is that, as of now, you have a successful business to put your money into and make it grow, just as non-owners who make $70,000+ a year have investment opportunities to really put their money to work effectively.

But does your hard-working employee who is not cut out for independent business have any equivalent option?

When I was growing up, he would have, through bank deposits, and he would have had perfect safety in the bargain. That is precisely how my own parents ended their lives in happiness and comfort.

No one can do that now. No one.

Oct 23, 2008 - 5:08 pm 58. Jason Blacketter:

Joseph Marshall:

Three issues:

1. This ain’t Monopoly. Wealth can be created, not just passed around. If someone is good at creating wealth, that doesn’t mean they are taking it from someone else. If someone down the street starts a business, risks what they have and works long hours, what is it to you or anyone else if they make good? When the assumption is that wealth is a finite pie to divvy out, that is when talk of wealth redistribution comes in which means that the guy down the street has no incentive to risk anything if it is going to go to the bum across the street who sits at home all day doing nothing or to someone with so little initative that after being in the world of work for ten years they can’t do anything that a part-time teenager can’t do just as well.

2. The concept of this percentile and that percentile is faulty. People move up and down in relative income and wealth over time. Individuals have to be tracked over time to look for progress, as opposed to an assumption that individuals remain forever arbitrary statistical break points of the top 10% or bottom 20% of whatever. You’d be shocked at how many start in the lower 20% and show up in the top 20% later on. My parents, back in the ’70s lived like extras from the Walton’s. Now they own their home out right, and their vehicles, they retired early to spend time with the grandkids, and have no material wants. I stated out in the late ’80’s making $3.35 an hour, now I make than 12 times that and it doesn’t distress me that someone else is making more than I am. If someone risks it all and goes into business and works like a dog, then if there is any justice they should do better than I do.

3. People working harder now? Doing what? Surfing the web at work while sipping coffee in a warm office posting “me too” to Daily KOs? Having a catered lunch meeting? That is work? My Grandfather did hard work–real work–by the hour, and never complained about it once. Half the twenty year old “over worked” twerps these days would’ve had a cardiac arrest just trying to keep up with him at age sixty on any day at the iron works–they’d have thought they were in some sort of extreme reality TV show where the contestants were measured by how many minutes they could stay in the game. The contention that Americans are working harder now than ever is funnier and funnier the more I think about it.

Oct 23, 2008 - 6:03 pm 59. Joshua:

@59

1. Creating wealth means adding value to the economy through manufacturing or other material improvements up to and including expedited communication, intellectual property and so on. By contrast, people engaged in financial services, stock and futures trading and so on are, in fact, taking wealth from other people. If Tom builds a car, he has created wealth, which you can purchase. If John finances your purchase of the car, John increases your costs and makes a tidy profit for himself, but he hasn’t added anything to the value of the car — he hasn’t added anything to the economy or created any wealth. This is not to say John’s services aren’t useful — credit is a necessary component of any capitalist economy. But an economy where most of the growth is in services is an economy that is bleeding real wealth.

3. Most jobs actually producing things though hard work have been shipped off to other countries. But it’s a mistake to assume that job with a high degree of idleness isn’t stressful or worth compensating. The popular analogy comparing office cubicles to veal pens is basically accurate; office drones suffer from a wide range of health and psychological problems that are byproducts of having to sit in one place, relatively unmoving, without natural light or fresh air, for 8 to 10 hours a day. As far as that goes, scanning blogs is essentially a coping mechanism for dealing with a tremendously stressful situation. In spite of this, the productivity of American office workers is still higher than that of office workers in most of the rest of the world and Americans overall work longer weeks and have significantly fewer holidays and vacations than people in other countries.

Oct 23, 2008 - 9:05 pm 60. Marc Malone:

Joseph Marshall – I agree with your info on home ownership. I’ve always maintained that buying your house is great for creating wealth… as long as you need that house to live in anyway. There are ways to reduce that interest curve. Paying 1/2 your mortgage bi-monthly will take 6(?) years off it. Many mortgage contracts bar this. Making 2 extra payments a year does the same. Again, check your contract. It’s the best way to build the equity in the home.

That said, the idea that most people can no longer save the money is silly. Most small businesses start by someone tapping their home equity for startup. They take a huge risk.

Starting and running a business is not about talent. Sure, some people are naturals, but it’s a learned skill. It mostly requires pure determination, and learning not to think like an employee.

I had a friend who had the coolest water bottle to attach to a bike, called Kool Kruz. The hose came up over your handlebars. I convinced him to manufacture it larger scale, and even offered to invest in his biz. He failed at it, because although the stores sold it well, it required a certain price point. He could not reach that price point, without making it overseas. He refused to, because he thought like an employee. He wanted to make it in America. Nonsense. He lost the rights to his invention, and also quit talking to me.

It’s the leftist talk that tells people they can’t succeed. They fill their heads with BS, and people get more and more can’t-do, instead of can-do. This is why the growth has been less in recent years, as liberals work to create the victim society.

As to the great economies of the Dems, there was a massive post-war baby-boom, plus a flood of positive (people who want to be Americans) immigration. Also, the generation was battle-tested. It changes your thinking. You don’t think like a victim after victorious combat.

When things slowed under Ike, it’s because the top tax rate was 70%. Kennedy was the one who decided that lower taxes were the key. He proved it. Reagan was just following in his footsteps. He was also proven right.

Oct 23, 2008 - 9:41 pm 61. sweet southern belle:

The American Dream… For one part of society the dream consists of taking what you can from the government (or working people), for the other part it is taking what you have and building on it. The second part of the dream applies to us all, except those running government, and that is to live our lives as we see fit, not as government sees fit. Welfare is a malignant tumor that is corrupting our Nation. Black leaders need to stand up and tell black people the truth, instead they encourage the entitlement mentality that is prohibiting the economic growth of african americans, by the millions! Example- Our government “gave” the Native Americans land and sent them checks. Look at them now! Our government gives african-americans ghetto’s and projects to live in and then sends them a check. Instead of promoting self reliance they promote a subculture of americans that honestly think that they are owed money because they have a pulse. I was pregnant at 16, married at 18 and had a family of 4 (including my husband)by 19. I never got a check and I survived! Instead of having BBQ ribs for dinner on food stamps, we ate fried bologna. We worked 3 jobs and barely scraped by. 10 years ago (18yrs. old) our combined income was less than $10,000 a year! Now at 27 and 28 years old our combined income is $165,000 a year. Why? Because hard work and determination is rewarding in America. It makes me mad as hell that after all my sweat and tears to get where I am, the government feels entitled to take a very large ammount of our money and hand it over to someone that doesn’t give a damn what I had to do to make it!!!

Oct 24, 2008 - 2:09 am 62. Kristine:

You’re dead on about the American Dream. Thankfully, there are those of who still believe in working for what we want and having a strong work ethic. I’m seriously stunned occasionally when I see the attitudes of younger people at work. They don’t care about quality or performance or doing things right. And somehow they remain employed. Then, when someone like me comes along, someone with a strict work ethic, people are actually SURPRISED that anyone would put that much effort into doing a good job. Umm… what?? That should be the NORM.

Anyway, I was able to buy my first home, by myself, when I was 32. The sad thing? I was embarrassed to admit how old I was when I was able to finally buy ’cause I felt like I should have bought a house by age 25. Don’t know where that embarrassment came from, but it was there.

Oct 24, 2008 - 3:42 am 63. The American Dream — Cranach: The Blog of Veith:

[...] our search for silver linings to the economic clouds, consider Michele Catalano’s argument that our financial woes may return us to a nobler version of the storied “American [...]

Oct 24, 2008 - 4:25 am 64. Joseph Marshall:

All my commentors:

Thank you all for your intelligent approaches to refuting my views. This is by far the best and most enlightening thread I have participated in on PJM.

I’m a little short of new things to say at this point, since I have presented most of the evidence I can conveniently dig up and given my interpretation of it.

But I can ask this: Could anyone here show corresponding numbers of how much wealth has actually been “created” from 1979-1980? And also whom it went to?

I have not broached the issue of median net wealth compared to the top 1% of wealth in this country, but in 1962 the net wealth of the top 1% was 125 times the MNW. It was 190% in 2004. At the rate of increase of 1,5% yr that these figures imply, the ratio for 2008 would be 196%.

I think that such figures make clear that what new wealth has been created has consistently and increasingly gravitated to the richest among us. This is exactly what you would expect if common stocks are favored over bank deposits by government policy, which they have been.

Also, I would point out that the median increase in after tax income for all of us from 1979 to 2004 has been + or – 50%. This is, in part, the result of the consistent attempts of Republican government to cut taxes, as well as the growth in our GDP. But the top 1% of us have seen a corresponding increase of 176%!

The cost of this tax cutting given inelastic services [and even the most Libertarian among us puts up a fuss when the services they use most are the one's to be cut] has been the balooning of our National Debt.

Now, whether or not there was a “balanced budget”, there is objective evidence that the restraint on government borrowing from 1996 to 2000 resulted in an explosion of new businesses and a general increase in “enterprise” instead of merely the concentrated growth in already established companies and in real estate values which has taken place from 2000-2006.

This suggests very strongly that United States debt is an immense drag on our potential for economic expansion. If so, the huge increase in government borrowing from 2004-2008 maybe one of the major [if undiscussed] causes of the current crisis in our credit markets.

I don’t claim to have a perfect explanation for the figures I have cited, but it would please me greatly if some one [or all] of you confronted the numbers I have been using and tried to interpret them in the light of your own “free market/tax cutting” ideology. You can find them, and access to many more like them, here:

http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm

I have pretty much shot my bolt on this one, but I would challenge you to go further [as I think you can] with real numbers to support your views.

Best to all.

Oct 24, 2008 - 7:31 am 65. Jerry D. HIll:

WOW. What fun to read. There are still people in America thinking. I was so happy to read this entire blog. I wish I knew most of you. It would be fun and exhilirating to sit down over dinner some weekend and just talk. This has sounded like the America I am glad to be a part of. Interchange of thoughts. I have already voted. First day. I like Sarah Palin, she is my ideal All American Woman. I am glad they bough her the clothes. Part of politics, you have to look the part. Can you fathom $600,000,000.00 spent by Obama to buy the Presidency? Who in the world is going to fuss about $150,000.00 to look like you belonged. Those certainly would not be clothes she would ever need living full time in Alaska. Obama did not really support Wright, he only gave about 2% or less per year to support the cause. He is like most Democrat politicians, he takes money from you and I to support people. Not his own. Anyway, I really enjoyed this Blog.

Oct 24, 2008 - 3:33 pm 66. md:

After reading this article about the “American Dream”, I couldn’t help but think about our morning breakfast group of men heading out for work in the mornings. We’re a mixed group, some white, some black, we even have a couple Hispanics thrown in. We’ve done this for, well, probably too many years. We have our coffee, a sausage bisquit or two, talk politics, the local sports stuff, all sorts of things. Most of us in this group are over 50. Most of us have our homes paid for, enjoy our old worn out pick up trucks, and love talking about our Grand babies. Some are Republicans, some die hard Democrats, but, mostly, we all know, each one are people we can rely on when things are tough. I do love these men and all we stand for and stand for each other. But, like one of the men said not too long ago, it’s hard to think but, we are a dying breed. My oldest son told me some time back, he’d give almost anything to have what I have in the mornings but, because of the guys of his generation, the knows he’ll never have that. That, to be truthful, makes me sad. We do question, what has happened to the America we grew up with? Maybe we, the guys of this morning group, did a poor job of teaching our kids? Maybe, that’s what’s needed; grab a cup of coffee and allow ourselves to stop for a moment and just TALK with each other. I can’t help but think, what would someone like Chris Mathews of Hardball think about this suggestion??? Interesting…

Oct 25, 2008 - 4:07 am 67. chuck,:

We got into a bidding war with the Soviet Union & associates over which system could deliver put more cars and washing machines and hamburgers into the hands of the people. Over time we came to think that was the definition of America.
So we won and we lost.

Oct 25, 2008 - 5:10 am 68. Marc Malone:

Joseph Marshall – I looked at the info you provided, and shall offer my interpretation as you requested. Also, regarding your question of incomes of 79-80, all I can tell you off the top of my head is something I saw recently, that said that total GDP in the Carter years fell 3%. Onward to your data….

2005 was the final year of the great housing boom. In 2006, the market started declining. Those in the financial sectors trading all those derivatives made crazy bank. 2007 was the last year to do that, then the music began to stop. It’s no coincidence that a lot of the bad actors got out then… with big severance packages.

The point is, much of that “wealth” was strictly on paper, just like the wealth in the Clinton years was a result of the Tech Bubble. President Bush has the great distinction of having TWO Bubbles blow up on his watch. Sucks to be him… especially when he didn’t cause them. Both these Bubbles really started in the 90’s.

The deficit did go up in ‘05, and I’m sure that it contributed to the decline in average citizen wealth, as taking money out of investment in industry always slows the real wealth creation. Someone buys that government debt, instead of investing in industry.

That’s why higher taxes has the proven negative impact on the economy. Even Obama admits he may have to “slow the implementation of some of his programs” until better times. (So, if it’s not good to raise taxes and spending in bad times, why is it good in good times? Just sayin’.) When you take excess money away via taxation, you are taking away the investable money.

There are four things that I believe contribute to the disparity in wealth between the top 1% and everyone else:

1) The artifical (paper) wealth. Beyond that discussed above, having Fed interest rates below inflation encourages all kinds of mischief, because it avails “Other People’s Money” on a scale that only the government can provide. That was the biggest enabler of the Housing Bubble;

2) Corporate earnings were actually down according to the info you provided, thus worker earnings were down. Money wasn’t being invested in real wealth creation. This is also the basis for the argument for lowering corporate taxes. More corporate profitability means better wages.

The Pub argument that companies don’t pay taxes, but just collect them is not totally true. It IS to some extent, but they still have to compete in the marketplace. Often, they end up taking some of that revenue-taking on the chin, as the marketplace will not support a full price increase to cover it.

The recent gas crisis demonstrated this. Companies were forced to hold some prices down regardless of the loss, else not have profitable sales at all. What it really means is they can’t give raises, and there are simply NO BONUSES.

3) Illegal immigration. It holds wages down in many ways. They will work for far less, because they’re illegal. They also bring the statistical average down. They increase government overhead, while not paying an equivalent amount of taxes per head. So, they take money from average workers in wages, then take it from them again in increased taxes for services for all these poor.

4) Victimhood. I like what “md” above had to say about his kid telling him that he won’t have what his Dad has, because of the attitudes of his peers. It’s clear to him the contrast in values: work ethic; self-reliance; self-sacrifice; dignity; far-sightedness.

It’s why the under 30 crowd supports Obama. They haven’t learned these fundamentals. They don’t know how wealth is really created. So, they put their hands out for a handout.

Thus, the message of “Joe the Plumber”. He wants to work. He’ll work long hours for his dreams. When he gets there, he wants the reward to be worth the sacrifice. He doesn’t want a handout on the way, because it punishes those who have already sacrificed to make it. If they can make it, so can he, with the same rules. Keep your damned handout. He neither needs it, nor wants it.

That’s the American Dream. You work for it. You earn it. You do it on your own. When you look in the mirror, you feel good because you’ve made the grade. You’ve made something of yourself. You’ve really accomplished something! It is no small thing to be handed out like party favors by politicians.

Oct 25, 2008 - 4:47 pm 69. 31:

I’m 31 years old. I have a Masters degree. I work hard with little financial payback so far but work hard in good faith that it will pay off in the end. My mother has worked 7 days a week selling real estate her entire life. Has owned three different homes. Put food on the table. Said no but also said yes. She still struggles to make her mortgage payment each month even though she’s owned the home since 1987 and it is her life’s investment. Under Obama’s tax plans, she’ll be paying an additional $40,000/year in taxes making those $6,000/month mortgage payments that much harder to make. That’s a lot of money. But she’s worked hard for it. Does she deserve it any less?

I guess some think so. My sister, 27, is campaigning for Obama which is fine. She collects disability (instead of working the one job she held down for more than a few months in her entire life) for an accident she has fully recovered from. Doesn’t pay her own rent (my parents pay it for her because she is, thank god, sober). Or her cell phone bills (again, parents). And never went to college even though she is intelligent and had good grades. She’s done nothing. And wants everything.

I think it’s okay to want everything. But I look at my Mom. I look at my sister. And I look hard in the mirror and think NONE OF THIS has to do with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. For all her wealth and hard work, my Mom isn’t happy. But come to think of it, my sister is happy. Maybe I should rip up my degrees and loan bills and join the “free” world. Ha ha. Weeee!

Oct 26, 2008 - 4:59 pm 70. Edward A.:

If the American Dream is coming to an end, we must all thank G.W. Bush for his leading role.
We may see both the U.S. dollar and our famed economy sink and the blame must rest on this administration. In eight years, our nation has some of the lowest new job creation. All Bush policies were designed to benefit the rich. Today the top 1% of Americans earn more than the bottom 50%. This same 1% owns 90% of all U.S. assets. McCain will only continue this race to make the wealthy even wealthier. If you are not in this top 1% why would you support McCain?

Oct 26, 2008 - 7:00 pm 71. Joseph Marshall:

Well, thank you very much Marc. The only question I would put to you is how do you define the difference between “real” and “paper” wealth?

Money is no longer tied to any scarce commodity such as gold or silver and all values in all markets from currency to real estate are merely intermeasured against each other. Where in all this do we find any “real” value? The paper money we transact cash business with is essentially no different than a bank’s certified check from the Federal Reserve. It’s even signed by the Secretary of the Treasury and countersigned by the Treasurer of the United States.

Consider deposit banking at it’s simplest. I deposit $1 with you, you lend the $1 to John, and you keep this on your books as $2, one owed to me and one owed to you by John.

Obviously this wouldn’t work if we were the only people involved, but get enough depositors and enough borrowers together and you have a bank which carries both deposits and loans on their books as separate amounts of money. So, in effect, banks actually create money, making $2 where there was $1 before. So which one is real and which one is “mere paper”?

Economists actually have a description of this process called levels of money: M1 is my dollar that I gave you and you lent John. M2 is M1+the extra dollar that magically has shown up to my credit on your books. Because there is enough M1 circulated by the government, deposited in banks, and lent by banks, M2 functions in the economy exactly as if it were just more M1.

When they speak of the Fed “controlling the money supply”, it’s not merely a question of issuing more greenbacks. It’s also a matter of the Fed loaning more M1 to Whosis National Bank to support the M2 that Whosis is carrying on the books against the eventuality that too many depositors will withdraw their deposits at once.

If this “run” on the bank happens, and they can’t pay all their depositors at once, which is the “real” money? The greenbacks that the lucky people at the head of the line got before the vault was empty? The money the bank owes but can no longer pay to the rest of the depositors? The money still outstanding lent by the bank to it’s debtors? Or all of these together?

The same problem occurs with things like common stocks. The value of a stock share on any given day has no relation to any standard of absolute value. It is merely a bid/ask price in a market changing through time, exactly the same way that a cash transaction for goods is a bid/ask price expressed in terms of greenbacks. So what is the difference between these transactions?

If I accept a bid for my share and receive it in the form of greenbacks, is that somehow more “real” than if I accept it as an electronic transfer to my bank account? Does the money I receive in any form become more “real” than the money quoted in the next bid/ask price when the stock share gets sold again tomorrow?

All of these conundrums of “real” and “paper” profits stem from the “just price” theory–the notion that for anything you buy or sell there is a just price determined by an outside standard of “true value” that all transactions can be measured by.

When we operated with “commodity money” where money was tied to the amount of a single scarce commodity like gold, a just price theory was arguable, because the “real” money was gold of a certain purity and weight, the stamping of coins a guarantee of purity and weight by the state, and the issue of paper money was a convenient way to transport and transact value which the state guaranteed could be redeemed in precious metal.

But in a world where all monetary values float against one another, a just price is impossible to determine, and all money is as “real” as we accept it to be and only as we accept it to be.

Oct 26, 2008 - 8:10 pm 72. Lisa:

Do you realize that you owe $65,000? Each person owes other countries $65,000! People get upset about the national debt being so high, but that is where it ends. The national debt keeps getting higher. The government keeps using “credit cards.” It is just like society: credit cards. Someone said it; people are complaining but still “making do.” Taking 2 vacations instead of three, walking by the homeless person while on their cell phone, etc. The rich are getting richer and the poorer are getting poorer.

Oct 27, 2008 - 7:13 am 73. Jess:

Seriously great article. This is going to be one of the hardest things to overcome in this new era. People are going to have to not only “make do” but change the very way they think about getting by. They will have to redefine their wealth and their mode of happiness and learn to live without this “entitlement” of an overly prosperous lifestyle.

Oct 27, 2008 - 5:22 pm

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: