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Edited on Tue Sep-21-10 05:23 PM by SoCalDem
It was (and has been for 3 decades or more) unsustainable.
A "service" economy where the serfs trade goods & services with each other at the lower levels, while the upper-crusties at the top, gamble with the real money in the economy, is NOT a viable economy.
Real wages have declined for decades as the hidden inflation of health care costs/child care costs/housing costs/energy costs has eaten away at any semblance of solvency for all but the upper-crusties.
In place of wages, the serfs were given "EZ-Credit" with 400-page disclaimers written in microscopic fonts and plastic cards that "helped" them finance dinner out with the family....over 5 years...and all for the princely interest rates of 25% & up.
Even if the serfs managed to squirrel away a few bucks here & there, banks are practically charging them for holding their money, since interest rates are ridiculously low.
The serfs who have jobs are made to feel "lucky", even though they be barely breaking even, and may lose that job at any second.
An economic "recovery" will be seen to have happened, when people are once again in buying-frenzy mode.
The fallacy here is that a working-life lasts 20-45 years, and people live longer than that (if they are lucky). The current manifestation of our economy does not provide a means for people to consume like maniacs during their working lives, save for their own old age, send their kids to college (if they choose to go), provide medical coverage for their families, and do it all while being paid the least possible in wages, so that their bosses can become wildly rich.
Every politician with even a modicum of intelligence understands this, but they are all too afraid to admit the obvious because they fear for their own political lives.
We cannot "go back" to they way we were...unless it's to go ALL THE WAY BACK to before our "service economy" started being pushed as the way-of-the-future.
No matter how many people go to college, there will always be people who cannot command high wages, but those people are here..they exist, and they have families. There HAS to be meaningful work for them to do...work that pays them enough to stay off the public dole, and that elevates them psychologically enough to raise their children to believe that they too have some hope of a decent life.
We always hear today's politicians bragging about how their Dad was a bus driver or a garbage man or some other job that we now perceive as "lowly", and look at how well they (the son of a ... ) has done.) What is different today, is that a college-educated school teacher/businessman who has been laid off, just could have children who may end up HOPING to get a bus driver's job.
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