by Madeleine KandoI come from a pampered country, a country that I call a ‘flopsy bunny’ nation. Many countries in Northern Europe are 'flopsy bunny' nations. We saw the French protest not too long ago, because their government wanted to raise their retirement age to 62! I do admire the French tradition of taking their demands to the street, but many of us here in the US were scratching our heads and wondering on which planet the French thought they lived.
Americans, you see, are hardworking, no-nonsense, pragmatic individuals. Their history is one of survival. Words like ‘pampered’, ‘lazy’, ‘spoiled’, don’t come to mind when I think of ‘Americans’. The reason they are like that is complex, but I suppose one of the reasons they work hard is that they think they can get ahead. They can improve their lives.
Unfortunately, this has turned into an illusion. The American Dream is dead. This simple expression, ‘The American Dream”, was alive and well for decades, when millions of foreigners came here in order to pursue it. But the definition of the American Dream is that "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone”, not just for the few.
The American Dream has turned into a nightmare. Americans work harder than ever. Women and wives work, not by choice but by necessity. Since there is no paid maternity leave in America, women barely have time to plop out their babies before they have to go back to work.
So what happened? What changed? If you work hard, spend energy doing something, like assembling a car, writing software, cleaning a restaurant.. aren’t you producing something? Who benefits from the value of that product? Shouldn’t it benefit the person that spends all that energy producing it by giving him money for his labor so that he can buy some of those products?
The American Dream turned into a nightmare when hard working Americans started to get paid less and less. They produced more because they worked harder, but they got paid less.
Since Americans are humans, they need shelter and food to live. They need a car to go to work. So the only thing they can do to just live, is borrow money. That’s fine and dandy as long as you are able to pay back the expensive money you borrow. But then the housing market collapses and your collateral vanishes overnight.
People get frustrated. You feel cheated. You see the government bail out the banks who lent you that expensive money while you have to foreclose on your house. No wonder you get angry. You get angry at the government. You don’t realize that you are barking up the wrong tree. Because, after all, if your salary had been adequate, had been a true reflection of what your labor is worth in a free market, you wouldn’t have had to borrow money in the first place.
That is what I call ‘The Amerian Nightmare’. Slowly the earnings of Americans went down, even though the economy grew. It grew, but only for a small portion of the population. The super rich got richer. Like a balloon with a blockage: all the air got stuck in a tiny part of the balloon while the rest is being asphixiated.
Gone are the days when the hardworking American had bargaining power. Gone are the unions. The idea that one of the jobs of the Government is to protect citizens against the excesses of capitalism never gets talked about. Let’s be honest, Government SHOULD redistribute some of the wealth in a capitalist society. Redistribute it by offering affordable education, affordable health care, affordable housing.
All we hear is ‘Government is too big’. The Government is blamed for everything. After the latest mid-term elections, things have gone from bad to worse. With this new Republican majority in the House and so many seats gained in the Senate, we will see even more inequality in this nation. What blows my mind is that it is the hardworking American that I so admire that has voted to put the very people in power that will tighten the noose around their necks even more. leave comment here
6 comments:
I think the issue is much bigger than one political party or another, though I fully agree with the inequity relative to the people you mention who produce value and should be compenated fairly for that.
I believe the problem in part stems more from the global competition and the simple fact that other countries (due to currency values) can produce products at much cheaper labor rates than we do. In order to be more competitive in producing product, we simply have to find ways to better compete with that. To take this further, the service industry, who serves within the US, is dependent on laborers that work for companies who export product in order to off-set the continuing imbalance. Protectionism will not solve that issue, overall competitiveness will. When we can produce more quality products at prices people around the world will want to buy, export will go up and help this issue significantly.
More internally, when we talk about unequality, it is interesting to observe how (at least some data I have seen) government employees have continued to retain jobs, get raises and have much better retirement and helathcare plans as compared to either those running their own companies, work for small companies or large corporations. When many non government industries have experienced major cut backs, lost jobs and benefits in the past 10 years, I don't believe we have seen close to the same level of impact on government jobs, pay, security and benefits. Part of benefits is the retirement packages employees receive (or not). When comparing, we need to consider the entire economic package individuals receive over their lifetime.
We're all in the same boat called the USA. Inidividuals, companies, government should consider improving the balance and fairness all the way around and somehow I believe we need to address the growing inequity between laborers and those at the top ranks in large corporations that earn salaries and bonuses way beyond what any person needs to sustain a reasonable level of quality of life. I believe, aside from the global economic challenges, individual greed is at the root of many of these inequity issues. Those in 'power' positions and especially those take personal advantage of these 'greed opportunities' should take more social responsibility, appreciating and rewarding those that enable their businesses to excell regardless of where they work (government or non government alike - I view government as a business that serves the people of this great country).
I believe it was Gramsci who nailed the answer to the question: Why don’t those who are exploited act on the basis of their exploitation? Because the ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class. In America we can’t even use the word “class.”
Yes,we could artificially manipulate our currency, reinvest in production rather than in consumption. That would certainly benefit the companies and their CEO's, but would it be good for Americans? We are competing with cutthroat practices that do not benefit the average citizens, neither here nor in other countries.
Focusing on government employees who might have better retirement and health care plans than some of us in the private sector is not going to solve our huge financial problem. In fact, I for one, believe that their plan should be the norm. It used to be like that until someone had the bright idea of introducing the 401K which put the burden of the risk on the employee instead of the employer.
Yes, I agree with your last point. But I don’t believe the super rich willingly would share in the burden. That is why we have a tax code. The tax code could be changed, as it did after the great depression, to tax the very rich at a much higher rate. It is in everybody’s interest, rich and poor, to distribute wealth more equally in a capitalist society.
Right now there are two economies in America: the economy of the rich and the financial industry and the economy of the rest of us. The economy of the rich is booming while ours is going down the drain.
The Gramsci quote sure says it all. The Tea Party has embraced the ruling class’ ideology with great enthusiasm, focusing on imaginary enemies. This is self-destructive and it will get them nowhere.
That's a real downer. Too bad it's true.
Absolutely right on. Very insightful comments. Is California better off than the rest of the nation? Hard to believe, in light of our inability to govern ourselves. And yet--the Tea Bag tsunami, slowed by the Humboldt sink and stopped cold by the Sierra Nevada, (I refer to Harry Reid's victory and the Democratic victories at the state level here) still has too many adherents in California. But we still have hope that we can pull it off once more.
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