The American Dream to most Baby Boomers has meant having a standard of living better than our parents. Our parents wanted us to go to college, get better jobs, live in better homes, and have more money than they did.
Our parents and grandparents survived The Great Depression of the early 1930s. They learned to make due with little money and scarce food. This was a time when the whole nation was in the same type of economic turmoil in which we find ourselves today. Are we destined to repeat the hard times of another great depression? Will our children enjoy the better standard of living that we have?
Being able to enjoy the American Dream for most of has meant owning your own home. For this generation, the dream is fading. Many Americans lost their homes in the Depression, and were forced to live as migrant workers, living in camps and tent cities. As in the Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, hunger motivated people to find work wherever they could get it. If it meant leaving home or being homeless, they did what they had to do.
Our society seems to have expanded the concept of having the American Dream. Owning your own home means owing for your home. People have purchased expensive homes that they cannot afford. They are saddled with huge debt that they may never be able to repay.
Banks are being blamed for giving these people doomed mortgages. Congress has approved a 700 billion dollar bailout for those banks in jeopardy of failing. We watch the stock market take huge plunges, and wonder whether the economy will ever recover so that our children can live at least as well as we did. Will the next generation be able to increase their standard of living? Is the American Dream dying a slow death?
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A slow death indeed. My nephew just turned two years old and I wonder what will he deal with as an adult. I do not think that this country will see the depths of the "Great Depression" again. Mass migrations for employment and soup kitchens just don't seem like a reality in this day and age. Surely civil war will befall us before that. Let's hope a turn for the better is in sight, perhaps this is the beginning of prosperity. Perhaps the fat cats will fall and common man can now rise up to victory. People like you and me who work to feed ourselves and our families will be blessed, can you smell it?
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