$130,000.00 American Dream

[Playball40]

Its not the American Need, its the American Dream.

In the American Dream, houses and cars are new. Gramma and Gramps live in their own home and are healthy. Mortgages get paid off not constantly refinanced. Mom and Dad get to go out to nice restaurant when they want and the family gets to go camping or to Disney World and the cost doesn't max out four credit cards. Parents in the American Dream can front the kids the downpayment for a starter home without taking out 2nd and 3rd mortgages. Real estate is handed down after someone dies not sold to pay medical debt or for nursing home care. Four years of college doesn't cost more than a house. in the American Dream, pensions are safe and savings are encouraged and bank accounts pay a reliable 3-4%. Wages rise not stagnate and jobs last for decades.

My folks had the American Dream. We owned our home (I remember my folks mortgage burning party.) We took vacations and every Christmas you got what you asked for (unless your parents got confused at Toys R Us.) My folks got regular raises, had affordable insurance and even with my mom having heart and cancer surgeries, our financial situation remained stable. Mom's job was not in jeopardy and when my folks retired, they had guaranteed benefit pensions to live a good life on.

Then came the Reagan Revolution

Anyway, the Dream was real for a little while for a lot of people. And now it isn't. And that's a fact. We can quibble over the cost of the dream but not the growing number of hard working people who will never have it.

And that's the point

VERY WELL SAID!!

 

[Derec]

They are referring to the typical "american dream" derek,

American Dream is not as specific as you or USA Today want to make it out to be. I can give you home ownership but it doesn't have to be a new $275k house necessarily. Neither does a car have to be a new luxury SUV.

which includes helping your kids pay for college and having a retirement one day.

Nothing wrong with that. But it is not necessary to max out your contributions while say you have car payments.

Yes, we ALL KNOW that we can cut corners, skip vacations, work two jobs.....blah blah blah. But last time I checked that wasn't the definition of 'dream'.

If you have other expenses in a particular year you reduce spending for non-essentials to compensate. I do not see anything wrong with that. If you do, well then you better earn the $130k.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

American Dream is not as specific as you or USA Today want to make it out to be. I can give you home ownership but it doesn't have to be a new $275k house necessarily. Neither does a car have to be a new luxury SUV.

its a dream derec. And nothing keeps a new house or new car, whatever model from being a part of that dream, now does it?

which includes helping your kids pay for college and having a retirement one day.

Nothing wrong with that. But it is not necessary to max out your contributions while say you have car payments.

and again, this isn't the American necessary, but The American dream. and under the American dream, school is affordable and if a kid gets a partitime job, s/he can damn near pay for college him/herself. Not all that long ago, quite a few people paid their own way through school and it don't take them 6 years or $59,000 to do it.

Yes, we ALL KNOW that we can cut corners, skip vacations, work two jobs.....blah blah blah. But last time I checked that wasn't the definition of 'dream'.

If you have other expenses in a particular year you reduce spending for non-essentials to compensate. I do not see anything wrong with that. If you do, well then you better earn the $130k.

so you agree with the OP. I knew you would come around.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I think at the heart of the American dream is security, the knowledge that if you do the right things, you will get the right results. And there is fairness on the job and a secure retirement in your golden years. That the economic pie grows and that your kids will do better than you did. And when the bad time come, we will all pull together, banker and bootblack, and watch each other's back and together we will all come out battered but unbowed on the other side and all the wiser and stronger for experience.

but we are not all in this together. Gov't bickers and balks. Business outsources. Education has been replaced by test-taking. The Arts now consist of the latest derivation of the last latest derivation. And all the while Americans work harder for less return and corporations now engage in political practice in the public square and get to pray while doing it.