The American Dream Goes On

Zuckerman, your agenda is showing!

Well, as my Dad always says, "figures lie, and liars figure." This old saw was never more clearly illustrated than in Mortimer Zuckerman's wildly misleading and disingenuous editorial, "The American Dream Goes On." Mr. Zuckerman states that "there are 12% more households earning in excess of $100,000 than 20 or so years ago.....and those making less than $30,000 have not increased." He then alleges this proves the shrinking middle class is a result of people moving "UP THE INCOME LADDER, NOT DOWN." Well, no.

Unless Mr. Zuckerman is unaware of the difference between nominal and real dollars, this is a deliberate effort to mislead. A quick example that renders any conclusions from this spoiled fruit moot: The equivalent of 100,000 1988 dollars in today's dollars is $183,120.88. The equivalent of 30,000 1988 dollars in today's dollars is $54, 936.26. This is calculated by simply compounding the CPI over the last twenty years. Now, does anyone really want to argue that more families are making $186,000 now than made $100,000 in 1988? Or that in terms of buying power the number of families living at that 1988 $30,000 level has remained static? I didn't think so. Mr. Zuckerman's shameful (and shameless) self-serving drivel may pass as scintilating in Davos. But, where the rest of us live, it is a transparent effort to flim-flam; an argument built on a foundation of deliberate obfuscation.

Scott Thompson

Education -- don't applaud, throw money?

Education at the K-12 level is failing and willcontinue to fail as long as it is considered to be a public monopoly run in reality by a closed shop union. Just as car quality did not improve until the market was opened up and competiton (from furriners of all people) came to play, education will not improve until the full panoply of Choice is used. And it can be implemented without additional funding.

Please see my article regarding the problem in Illinois at my Blog: www,truthfuljames.blogspot.com for a more detailed look at the problems with the three legs supporting what I callthe seat of knowledge on which the student must sit.

The "Me First and to Hell with Everone else Crowd"

Those who have worked hard should be entitled to earn a nice wage; however, it is not acceptable that the masses are slaves to corrupt credit card companies and predatory lenders while the rich just look for tax shelters and cheap properties to rent out to the "middle class" many of whom can't even think of buying a home.

Remember that in the 60's we had housewives at home raising children while husbands worked in manufacturing. General motors workers earned over $16.00 an hour and one income could buy a home, a car and a vacation every year.

Now, middle class means you both work, your kids come home to an empty house and often have to raise themselves - or worse, they are raised by the neighbors kids!

Anyone with high income is kidding herself if she thinks this downward spiral for over 50% of the people can go on forever. We live in a country with too many crazy people who can't get the help they need from a broken government and spiritually broken people. We have over 200 million handguns floating around. What do you think would happen if unemployment ever reached more than 10% with all the wackos out there who can't get adequate treatment and all the guns there are.

In Costa Rica, rich people have towers with armed guards to protect themselves from the poor.

If we are to be a community rather than a lot of short-term - self-interested individuals, the rich should be taxed at a higher ratio than the rest to insure that we are ALL safe, educated and have food on the table.

Rampant captalism run buy rich politicians is not what our forefathers envisioned in their dream of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.

Those who only think of themselves will ultimately destroy our country. I think they can live with one less house, yacht or diamond ring if it means our children can go to sleep at night without fear of what they will face tomorrow...

Lots of Socialists

Amazing.

Everyone is angry because the rich get richer. You have bought a box of b.s. that the left has pushed on you for the last 40 years. Why does anyone care what someone else is making? Worry about yourselves and don't be a pawn for the Democratic party.

I make $45,000.00 a year. That's far from rich. I am firmly entrenched in the middle class and I have satellite TV, 2 vehicles, a nice home and money in the bank. I have been to Italy 3 times in the last 5 years and Australia twice. Guess what? I know how to save my money and spend it wisely

I don't care that the owner of my company makes more than me. He should.

Stop crying.

"I make enough money to support my lifestyle and family"

Sure wish I knew how big your family is and what your lifestyle is. We make enough to do the same IF: we didn't have children; we didn't have medical issues; we didn't like to eat AND we didn't need to drive anywhere. Here in the south we don't have mass transit so we need to drive to get to work. We have one son left at home and he will be graduating from high school next spring. We would love to tell him that he has all the options his older siblings had, but the reality is that our dollars just don't stretch as far as they used to. We do have health issues that seem to grow as we age and are now having to choose between our prescription medications and milk and bread each week. Extra trips to park or even to the doctor are just not acceptable for our budget. Maybe Arizona is enjoying a better economy than South Carolina or just maybe our farm fed lifestyle is just too wild. Should we consider cutting out our electricity and water too?

I worked my asss off to make a good living, I dont need Obama mooching off of my hard work so he can get elected, pandering to the jealousy of those who decided not to starve while they went to school , instead, taking their income while I worked 12 hour days and 4 hours of class at night.

How about fixing the economy instead of crying about my success with your loser constituents.

American Dream in reverse

My income has dropped from over $80,000 to just under $45,000 in the past 5 years. I work in information technology and a lots of jobs that used to be available in my local job market no longer exist. I made more money at age 35 than I do at age 45 and I am very worried that I will not have much savings for retirement since my 401k is losing money, over 20% of it's value in the past 2 years. I sold my home last year, I owned it since 1991 and so it was not a loss by any means but it was not a tremendous gain either. All in all, it seems like the American Dream that my Father and Grandfathers enjoyed is no longer possible from what I can see. I expect to work until I die, assuming that the few jobs left in my local market are not sent overseas. I know of a few nice bridges I could camp under until I die, so I won't need to live on the street. The fact that my employer no longer offers healthcare benefits means I use free clinics and emergency rooms, my life span will not be long so I guess that's net plus since I won't use much of the Social Security and Medicare benefits that I paid into with my taxes withheld from my shrinking paycheck. I used to be able to afford continuing education, and my employer used to offer it as a benefit but no longer do so in order to boost profits. I have a BS in Accounting, certifications on Microsoft and Sun operating systems and applications as well as my Project Management certification. It seems that most employers do not care about my education and experience, they only care about my hourly rate and it keeps dropping. Unfortunately, food and fuel keep going up while my paycheck gets smaller.

"We need to talk about living wages, available and affordable health care, quality education for all, etc."

You mean, only if it comes to your conclusion, right? Look, I don't know what a living wage is or what that even means, but I make enough money to support my lifestyle and family. Healthcare, contrary to what you may believe, is freely available, and universality of healthcare is not the same as good, quality healthcare. Quality education is very subjective, and mostly depends upon the aptitude of the student, not on being able to pay for it (if this were the case, then D.C. would have the highest quality education since the city pays the most per student). A middle ground can be achieved, but that requires both sides to give up something in return. This is the only way to really solve the problems of the middle class.

The American Dream

If you want to know what the American Dream looks like from my perspective, why don't you come for a visit and we can talk about it, instead of relying on some "research." Come to small town America and see what it is really like out her. I wish that every senator and congressman would do the same. We need to talk about living wages, available and affordable health care, quality education for all, etc. I do not want to talk about religion, gotcha politics or any of the other trivia that the press seems to find so fascinating. I want a real campaign where the candidates and the press talk about what really matters to real people out here in reality land.

Maybe the middle class can try this.

Live within your means and you'll be fine. Try to keep up with the Joneses, and you'll fall behind.