posted on Feb, 20 2009 @ 05:40 PM
I've been watching since the 1980's, how American workers have been told to take wage cuts and pay more for their health "benefits" and
retirement. Newly hired workers, for example, at an automobile plant, might have to work for half of what those already working get paid. How on
God's green earth does some economist or politician expect the average citizen to keep up with, not even the Jone's, but with the lifestyle they
grew up in (i.e. the one their parents enjoyed after WW2, the one they were told was being threatened by Osama Bin Laden)?
If the price of housing and big ticket items (a car, etc.) grew but wages remained at best stagnant, with workers paying more for health and
retiremnet costs, the only way for a family to afford a first house or car was to take on more debt, as home mortgages turned to 50yr or "interest
only" and car loans went from loans of 3 year to loans of 6+ years. More of a family's income went to finance debt (interest), a debt built often on
two incomes, with financial ruin if one income was lessened or loss, such as has been happening in greatly increasing numbers lately!
I can remember right before car loans increased in length, some people were told that the only way they could afford a car was to lease a car, rather
then take on a loan, of which they couldn't afford the monthly payment.
The sickest thing I find is telling the American people to fight Osama Bin Laden by going shopping! OBL didn't bring down the American way of life or
economy, or even the world economy. The enemy were those too greedy to just say no to squeezing the money out of the American worker and the economy.
The second biggest sick idea was to have Americans funnel their Social Security into the Wall Street casino!
The biggest thing that will help Americans now are jobs, jobs that create a Middle Class with an income once again to be able to afford purchases with
minimum debt. Otherwise, we'll just be rebuilding another house of (credit) cards. The American economy needs to be rebuilt, from the ground up, to
survive in the 21st century and beyound. Will it be a first world economy or a third world economy?