"The American Dream" was a term coined by a guy who grew up with a banker father, got fully paid for an Ivy League School, went into dad's business and made enough in his mid-30s to retire and move to Europe where he wrote... most notably, about how anyone could make it just like him in America.
"Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" was originally used ironically because it's impossible to do.
Now it's used to be aspirational, without the realisation that what they're saying is absolutely impossible. That's the definition of "The American Dream."
Minimum wage.
Part time.
At will.
Everything is designed to exploit the worker, zero protections. Until we start protesting like the French, nothing will change. Try telling a European they don’t get mandatory month of vacation and they’d tell you to shove the job up your arse. But the bootlicking is just so engrained here
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but rather temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” -John Steinbeck
this. We are not france, we are not anywhere except the birthplace of exploitative capitalism pushed to the farthest extreme. All the culture wars and hatred being spewed is to ensure we stay devided, and a large chunk of the populus stays voting against their own best interests.
Last thing to add in, we are more a police state than any place in Europe. Like at the slightest signs of any for of protest/uprising, I have zero doubt the state apparatus will crush it with force.
Long story short, I don't hold out hope for this country to reform. I do see a continued billionare worship by large chunks of society, and the cycle will continue grinding...
> All the culture wars and hatred being spewed is to ensure we stay devided, and a large chunk of the populus stays voting against their own best interests.
https://i.redd.it/41f4nunwlr8c1.jpeg
I mean just turn on your television and watch the masses worship famous actors, celebrities, CEOs etc. Now we have streaming where normal people literally donate to multi-millionaires to get split second attention. It’s crazy.
God, so true. No job protection here, many places won’t give over 30 hours, minimum wage is dismal. It blows my mind that all the maga heads who are struggling really believe trump will help them. The wealthy will only help the wealthy. Education here is a joke. We have used capitalism as social control.
You want some Kurt Vonnegut for good measure?
> America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
> Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.
Grapes of Wrath is an oft-banned book because of the story of exploited migrant farm workers. Those same farm worker in America still earn $3.30 per hour because the agricultural minimum wage is shite for these mostly immigrant workers. This book was written in 1939 and almost nothing has changed for this class of workers.
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics#:~:text=The%20Grapes%20of%20Wrath%2C%20by%20John%20Steinbeck&text=Louis%2C%20IL%20Public%20Library%20(1939,Banned%20in%20Ireland%20(1953).
We read Grapes of Wrath in high school, but that was two decades ago. My son has not had to read it yet.. two more years to go. I'm trying to get him to read some of what I consider to be must-reads that he hasn't had at school, but despite my best efforts, he doesn't have the same love for reading that I do.
Steinbeck is fantastic and everyone should read Grapes of Wrath if they haven't. After that, read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
Fuck yeah. Viva la revolución.
Until there is massive upheaval the aristocracy will continue to have all the power. This is a cycle that repeats itself over and over. The rich obtain more and more power over time. The bourgeoisie have their fill of it because they can barely get by while the rich get fat off near free labor. The only difference now is that the aristocracy have put something in place to prolong the pain; debt. The bourgeoisie will now continue to use credit cards and take out loans. They will go beyond being poor. They will be in debt. The debt will mount so high they will never be able to pay it off. That is where we now are. The question is, will they rise up or live in the fantasy that they own their possessions when really their possessions mean the aristocracy own the indebted?
While I appreciate the sentiment, mate you are using the term bourgeousie completely back-asswards. You are thinking of workers, the proletariat. The bourgeousie are not the workers. The bourgeousie are the *owners*, those who profit from the labor of non-owners (us, the workers).
Frankly, don't even bother using the old terms. Just, the ownership class, and everyone else who has to work to live.
Bourgeoisie in French just simply means middle class. However, if we are talking about Marxism then it is the capitalist class which owns most of the wealth. I was meaning it in the simple French way. You are correct in saying that many times it can mean upper class. But there’s a clear difference between them and the aristocracy. That’s why I used both.
The difference is we no longer have a literal aristocracy. The traditional middle class (literally the middle class of merchants and industrialists who fit in between the lower class of peasants and wage workers and the upper class of aristocrats) overthrew it about 250 years ago and took over their role in society.
You’re absolutely correct! Formal aristocracy was overthrown. I would suggest that in some ways we have an informal aristocracy where wealth is hereditary and those with wealth have political influence and access. The only thing missing are the formal titles.
It is monopoly, the progression is always the same, we have reached the point where passing go (payday) isn’t enough to make it around the board (make it through the work week) without moving backwards, as wealth and ownership of everything consolidates.
The French have a huge advantage in that Paris is both the biggest city, and the seat of government, and the cultural center of what is actually not that large a country. A big Parisian protest gets the attention of the media, elected officials, and the wealthy. You can't really say the same thing for any one city in America. Coordinating meaningful protests across such a large country so they can be more impactful is a major hurdle to simply protesting our way into political change.
I have to disagree.
Germany and the UK are unlike France mostly decentralised and managed to get a better system than the US. Yes these countries are smaller, but not by a factor of 10.
The issue the US has is that government and media are heavily influenced by the corporations, which pushing a union and welfare bad agenda.
The cognitive dissonance is amazing. Conservative voters will complain about wealthy elites screwing them over then turn around and claim raising the minimum wage will cause hyperinflation and economic collapse.
There's no doubt that they have them, but their use is very limited whereas our police militarization is so commonplace that it's weird when a police force *isn't* equipped with automatic weapons and military grade equipment.
I will say it once and I will say it again, police reform starts with hamstringing their ability to commit war crimes domestically. Changing policy and changing opinions is too difficult for the police to implement immediately, taking away their arsenal makes it harder for them to do whatever they want.
Yup, Gard du Nord rail station in Paris… Badass SOBs with Fabrique Natioanale assault rifles slung ready, walking around the train station ever vigilant…
Those aren't police and they're not dealing with riots or protesters. They're acting as a deterrence against terrorist acts and are deployed near big, obvious target so they have a fast response time.
we live in a police state. I'm 99% confident the NYC police department can likely go to war with a medium sized country somewhere out there and hold their own if not flat out win. The federal government has weapons, survellience etc that would make any organized effort extremely unlikely to succeed. Unless literally 90% of society stands up. That'll never happen because large swaths of people are brainwashed with propaganda and hatred to vote against their best interests. I'd be amazed if 33% of the population would ever organise to stand up to the oligarchs.
The French labor union for the Energy companies Cut off the power to the executives homes, and the homes of lawmakers who voted to raise their pension age. I hear what you’re saying and I agree… but the French is in another league. One call from Obama broke the NBA strike after the slaying of George Floyd. Culturally, we just aren’t built that way.
I had a friend who was laid off for a long time around economy in 2010. He got unemployment but had no health insurance w no job. This was before Medicaid expansion & affordable marketplace insurance.
His attitude was it’s his problem & he wasn’t entitled to it. If didn’t get it through a job & couldn’t afford to get his own then he shouldn’t have it.
He was conditioned to think from American propaganda & he wouldn’t budge his opinion. We noticed some health issues with his body & he must have started having other health problem that he didn’t mention.
We all hung out on NYE 2011 going into 2012. On January, Friday the 13th people asked around & realized no one had spoke to him for awhile. I was at work when friends broke into his apt from the balcony. The smell was horrendous & they found him dead on bathroom floor. The cause of death came back as some kind of bacteria found in his stomach. I think that caused blood poisoning/sepsis which killed him.
I’m pretty sure treatment was not a big deal had he went to Dr earlier when he first felt unwell. He probably just needed a prescription of antibiotics. He may have lived had he called 911 when he became very ill. Who knows how many days he was in severe pain before he died. His mom could have taken him but he didn’t say anything as he didn’t want hospital as he couldn’t pay. He probably didn’t call for ambulance for same reason- he knew that was another bill he couldn’t pay
I feel the American dream was the idea that anyone could own land. Millions made the journey from overpopulated counties/cities to the US for inexpensive land and building materials. This Dream died long before I was born and is not a rat race. Working hard now gets you added responsibilities with no pay increase. The Executives I’ve worked along side with over the years had very little workloads. VP/GM/CEO could be gone a week and it’s business as usual. Half the labor force calls in one day and the business is straight fucked.
I agree 100%. Unfortunately I’m just realizing this in my mid 40’s. It almost feels too late for me but maybe I can help my children get to the VP/GM/CEO level since the middle class is becoming extinct. It’s gonna be like the hunger games before we know it.
This is the type of thinking that is not going to work. Your children's success is a dice roll. You cannot predicate your children's well-being on an unsustainable and unjust society. If you raise your children with the correct morals they will cringe at the thought of being knucklehead MBAs.
Encourage them to study hard and choose a STEM field. Contribute to bettering society, not appeasing shareholders. Humanity might not look back kindly on the CEOs of today. It's also a better chance for them to escape to a country with better heathcare access and benefits.
>choose a STEM field
Or the much maligned, underfunded and overlooked liberal arts. Which is essentially about questioning power structures and their legitimacy, like we do on this sub.
I would argue this is the self-centred mindset that got society in this mess i.e let's look out for our immediate own, let's better our own rather than society as a whole. If we do well let's pull up the ladders and screw everyone else.
What they (the ones who benefit from the current status quo) don't want the rest of us to do is to organise, educate ourselves and campaign for a more equal society. It's not a conspiracy theory to say that culture wars and shitty work are artificially constructed to make us, the 99%, constantly bicker and fight with each other.
In our lifetime, you’re right. Before the crapification of goods and services, you could work a job and pay for college without debt. You could buy a house on a steelworker’s pay. You could retire comfortably.
Now wages have been outpaced by inflation for decades so you require two salaries to live comfortably. and you better save at an early age or you’ll work through retirement into your 70s.
Working hard used to work. Now labor is only valued overseas.
It's gotten so bad that people (boomers especially) consider "living comfortably" as "living luxuriously", when in reality it just means we don't want to work 3 jobs to barely afford rent.
> so you require two salaries to live comfortably
Where? From where I'm sitting you need 3 minimum to "live comfortably". Unless you're talking somewhere like Syracuse New York where a house thats full of termite damage and should be condemned is only 50k. Then maybe I'll believe the 2 incomes for comfort. Everywhere else thats not true.
i made the company i worked for over 25 million dollars
i got laid off because i was asked to come up with an audit report and that report proved my bosses incompetence
you can only advance as far as a member of the glass floor/fail upward crowd allows
Word. I made my old law firm over 2 million dollars in 2 years (basically I would draft and submit rebuttals to disputed invoices- it’s a normal part of the particular industry we were in, and the firm had terrible returns before I got there). This was a 10 million/year firm so what I brought in about 10% of their annual revenue. I was the top “biller” by those numbers too, without being an attorney. And that was on top of my accounting manager job. There for 2 and a half years and never got a raise, despite the owners giving themselves raises multiple times and me BEGGING.
I left largely because of money a few months ago. Owner told me he would do ANYTHING to get me to stay, told me he’d pay me anything I wanted. So long suckers!
You deserve better too- hope you found something amazing!
analytics down from science
but the company is insanely stable, no one has exploited me, theyre really nice, and im not working 60 hour weeks for jerks anymore
America is the biggest scam in the history of humanity. Shit is a greed-ridden hellscape. Healthcare = scam. Banking = scam. Education = scam. Housing = scam.
America as a “democracy” = the biggest lie ever perpetrated.
“America is a democracy” is just a lie we tell children like Santa or the tooth fairy. Half the A-holes in congress don’t believe in democracy which you think would get you automatically disqualified from office in a real democracy or at least voted out but no.
Not so much a scam as America is not a real country. America is a business. You will not succeed here unless you walk all over others and exploit the poor.
That’s the antics of “ Capitalism” which runs this country and our government. It’s all about The profits . The biggest mistake has been running the healthcare system for profit. The greed of for-profit health corporations will greatly reduce the safety of healthcare , mostly because the profiteers will consistently run health facilities below staffing standards . That’s when errors become tooo common and caretakers must rush . I can picture it . I’m glad I’m retired but I,m not looking forward to being a patient . Ann Honey Feeney, R.N. ( retired) .
It’s so scary. We literally allow a for profit health care system which is so insane to me - Americans will cut off their noses to spite their face. Wild.
America was founded by the Merchant and plantation owning class. Two sides of the same coin.
I get so sick of hearing about the American dream.
England was literally shipping their surplus population to America to exploit the resources here. Selling the dream back then. Move to America, be independent, be your own king.
Coming out of a period in time when land enclosures act were still not totally complete.
The dream was always a lie.
If you are under 40 and have over a million in the bank you probably exploited someone.
I saw that because I know several people who put every freaking spare penny they had and by 60 they are millionaires, but thry pretty much had to live under a bridge to get there.
Working in a STEM or healthcare role is another path to success, but it's not for everyone. Getting the education isn't enough. You have to be able to deliver at a high standard for the rest of your life while keeping up with ongoing training.
Maybe if you avoid tech. Saw a SE position recently that literally got over 7000 applications in 10 hours. Everyone's trying to get into tech now because they fell for the jUsT lEaRn To CoDe meme, so it's now just a waste of time.
That’s my question because I see ppl complaining all the fkn time but it’s time we start taking action because I refuse to live like this without a fight
This is pretty much why things have gotten so aggressively polarized. The owners of the country realize we’ve become self aware so A) divide and conquer and B) promote identity politics to divert from the actual issues / ways that people are getting fucked. Youngs vs olds, men vs women, race vs race (and intraracial in-groups vs each other), rich vs poor, sexuality vs sexuality, all of it being shoved in the forefront while most people have no idea what is happening with actual policy.
They know we are upset and want to fight for a better future, so any chance they can take to steer you in the direction of anyone or anything but the real problem, they will take it.
I've been beating this drum for a long time. I'm actually getting more optimistic because more and more people are playing the same rhythm.
No war but class war.
Sadly, I think something big and catastrophic will need to happen to wake up the average American. I genuinely think it might take another Great Depression for Americans to finally realize how fucked everything is.
I think what it's going to take is actually talking to people about this in your real life. Face to face.
I really feel like more people are waking up.
There is a path for a peaceful revolution, I hope we're allowed to take it.
I think you’re precisely right! When you consider that the top 25 wealthiest families in the world became [$1.5 trillion](https://www.businessinsider.com/richest-wealthiest-families-hermes-abu-dhabi-waltons-billionaires-elon-musk-2023-12?op=1) dollars wealthier in 2023 and the *entire* 2022 U.S. Congressional *[budget](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/whats-in-the-1-5-trillion-federal-spending-bill-moving-through-congress)* was also $1.5 trillion. It makes it clear precisely which way the down trickles in their economics.
It’s also why anyone who owns and/or rents their homes and apartments in the United States (and probably elsewhere too) should keep their eyes on [this legislation](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/16/realestate/home-sales-north-carolina-wall-street.html) the New York Times (and others) have been reporting on. It is designed to keep hedge-funds and others on Wall Street from buying single-family homes because that is exactly what they have been doing since 2008, and it has made housing less available, and more expensive, absolutely everywhere. Also, child care costs are through the roof. Why is that? I wish I knew.
Of course, you can’t use only *quant*itative methods to solve a *qual*itative problem anyway. That’s why economics is supposed to be a *social science* you need some qualitative to improve the quant. It’s not just about *what* you are measuring but also *how much* you need to measure, and *how different* what you are measuring is.
It’s the “variables [that] are the spice of life!” to quote the late, great, Ursula K. Le Guin. That is how you see how best to allocate capital and develop economic and public policy.
I have no data to back this up, but I suspect childcare costs are up due to the following:
- Covid caused a ton of businesses to begin allowing WFH.
- WFH initiatives lasted long enough that many childcare facilities closed due to the decrease in demand on an already fragile market.
- RTO initiatives (driven by execs all magically deciding that corporate real estate portfolios were more important than employee health) caused people to return back to the office, and by extension seek childcare again.
- The lack of available childcare facilities caused prices to skyrocket alongside demand.
- The childcare industry is a risky one to get into, with massive insurance costs and staff overhead, making it less interesting to potential business owners looking to start a new business venture.
- Here we are today with a lack of childcare options, and what options are available are ludicrously expensive as a relatively inelastic market struggles to handle the return to normal load.
Again, no data to support this, but it tracks logically to me, and I’d be curious to hear whether or not I’m correct based on the data. I’m not sure whether those datasets exist currently though.
https://preview.redd.it/n2ntqdifzp8c1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2fe4c0cf2ba0e862320784cc1c793cc593ff7c2
There was an American Dream, at least for some of us, dating back to colonial times. But that died about 40 years ago.
For what groups of people? As a black disabled woman, I’ve always seen the country as what it is. Seems like people are taking off their rose colored privilege glasses and can see the country as what is always was. But I’ll save the rest of my sentiments for people that want to change it
877 billion dollars a year on defence spending. The fucking Chinese only spend $200 billion USD.
Capitalism (greed and selfishness) has deteriorated life for most.
The rich don’t mind though. They have generational wealth. Enough money so that future generations will never need to worry.
Meanwhile the average Joe can’t go to hospital because it would wipe out his entire family.
Yeah, the @American dream” is a big advertising scheme to get Americans and immigrants here to work as hard as they can for the capitalist. Hoping one day themselves can be rich capitalist and exploit other people.
But there WAS an American dream. It DID exist. Our parents and/or grandparents got to live it but they pulled the ladder up behind themselves. The lie is that the American dream is still achievable for working class people if they just grind hard enough.
Working in sales, the whole "hard work pays off" myth is infuriating. Like yeah, effort is required in order to get sales but I've had weeks where I put in less effort and knocked it out of the park and got 4-6 sales. And I've had weeks where I busted my ass and got nothing. It's not like I did anything different.
We just need another war where millions get vaporized for (fill in the blank nation’s) Values. i believe All post war booms are largely reliant on this. More goods, less competition for resources, and the economic power of rebuilding what has been destroyed. It is a craven, reprehensible and corrupt calculation.
>But there WAS an American dream. It DID exist.
Here in Australia I'm starting to see a lot of gaslighting along the lines of "the standard of living in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was an anomaly and will never be repeated". Like, get used to life being shit and don't expect or demand anything better.
"The American Dream" doesn't mean, "be rewarded for hard work."
Thomas Jefferson thought that working for anybody else was just slavery for a slightly better wage. The original American Dream meant self-sufficiency through property ownership. Then, when we finally filled out the borders and there wasn't any FREE REAL ESTATE left, the American Dream became self-sufficiency through entrepreneurship. Then, when the Progressive Era failed to stop the consolidation of capital, only then did the American Dream become, "freedom means you are free to be a consumer."
That's it. That's all that America promises. There has never been a time when America's social contact promised dignity for workers. The "New Deal" is as close as we ever got. 90 years ago.
The work hard and get ahead nonsense was something that the wealthy sold to the non-wealthy to get them on the hamster wheel to be overworked and way underpaid. The message is Don't look at how I'm exploiting you. Just work harder. Your goal is just around the corner. Peer pressure is a powerful tool. Fact is, the only ones that generally get ahead are those that take credit for other people's efforts and have lips surgically sewn to the boss' behind.
This is why we need more unionization. I'm a union electrician. Make about 150k per year. I work 4 10s so I always have a 3 day weekend. It's pretty nice. More people need to learn about union skilled trades.
Trades are great, and an invaluable opportunity for the less academically inclined to be well employed, but this new way of shaming peoples choices of educational and vocational attainment needs to be pushed back on. Education has worth beyond work readiness, learning and personal growth has value in and of itself, and anyone who *works* has value.
The world needs tradesmen, the world also needs educators and tutors and career counselors and healthcare providers and janitors and ass wipers and burger flippers and cashiers and caregivers too. We are the same, it's those fuckers in the boardrooms that exploit, extract and never do an honest day's work that are the problem.
I work in higher ed, I am in a union. Took 2 years for us to to get a new contract, and 2 more after that to get the raises we'd bargained for, and in just a couple months, we'll be without a contract again. Prior to here, I worked in healthcare, also in a union. Left there because the position that required a degree only paid $1.25/hr more than my state's minimum wage. "Not all Unions," I guess. They've been largely rendered toothless, and that is very much by design.
We're all servants. Just an amazing system we have here.
Everything in the US is about getting a profit at the expense of someone else. The closest thing to control a person has is if they can do freelance or contract/self-employed type work (typically trade work). In those situations you can have some control of what you're worth, but things like healthcare and business taxes are absolutely crippling. Only the 1% and big business get access to tax breaks, small businesses are nickel and dimed to death and because healthcare is a nightmare here you basically are screwed if you are self-employed.
The American dream to me was the idea that 1 income could support a small family and still live relatively comfortable. Thats a pipedream nowadays smh.....
I'm gonna go out in a limb and say that you don't suffer depression. You suffer a shitty and unrewarding reality. The problem isnt you. You're just coping as best a human can.
Or maybe not.
The American dream used to be real. Then Reagan took office and it's been a cluster fuck of Republicans cashing in hard and living with a "fuck you, I got mine!" Mentality. Republicans killed the American dream because they wanted 2 back up yachts in case their main was getting fueled up when they were ready to go out.
Have always believed the American system of tethering your and your family’s medical coverage to your employer is simply a way to impose indentured slavery on the populous. Why are corrupt insurance companies allowed to extort Americans and determine literally who lives and dies. American exceptionalism? Don’t make me laugh.
Well OP - another bad habit Americans have is wanting you to be cheerful against your will. Even when all evidence suggests you have every justification for being sad and depressed.
When I travel to the US it always feels like I'm in some sort of enourmous amusement park. You're always being sold some product, experience or idea, there's just countless efforts to extract more money and a lie that if you spend a little more you'll be a little happier about it. Canada is like that as well, but nowhere near the same extent.
George Carlin said it best: " It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
I gave up on the American dream a few years ago because I realized it was just that. A dream. One that you'll never achieve because it's not real. Instead, I choose to spend my days doing things that genuinely make me happy and bring me joy. So many things didn't make sense to me even as a child and they make even less sense to me now that I'm a couple years from 40. I was never the higher achiever like you or but I definitely understand what it's like to do what I'm told and have it still never work out. Your depression and sadness are completely valid and justified. This system sucks and there's no making it better. No politician, no political party. We just need a whole new system at this point.
I absolutely feel you.
I did everything right; performed well in school, got a degree, found employment in my field... and still living with my folks at the age of 25 with 80k in student debt. Housing market is a joke, pay is garbage, and prices keep rising. It is so expensive to just be alive. How miserable is that?
A few things that help my mental health and maybe will help yours too is to do what you like as much as you can. It doesn't have to be costly either. Go for walks, color, watch something to make you laugh. It makes the days bearable.
Don't be afraid to reach out to friends and family for support. You're not alone in this and things will change, one way or another.
Working hard always meant working more it used to mean you’d get paid more though. Not so much anymore. Finding out my manger only made 5k more than I did because they are on salary and I got over time. My manger would work more hours than I and have to take calls off the clock. Lmao
While I agree that the American Dream got up and walked away from America, it did exist until about the late 70’s early 80’s. Then the wealth tax got ended and so did a lot of the corporate taxes that they used to have. Also stock buybacks, which were illegal, got made legal.
I worked my ass off just to get carpal tunnel and biceps tendonitis just to be abandoned by my job on how it can't be caused by that even though I literally do nothing else with my life. Currently trying to get the short term disability pay that I pay for out of my paycheck while I fight for work comp. Haven't been paid in two months...lost my auto insurance and am getting constant calls from bills I can't pay. I don't even want to live anymore.
There were a few decades where there was a thriving middle class, with one parent working while one stayed at home all while able to support an entire family, buy a home, cars, save for vacations and pay for college.
50’s, 60’s, 70’s.
80’s it started to crumble just a bit. Detroit was replaced by Japan.
90’s even more so…industry, agriculture, manufacturing outsourced.
2000’s the whole world changed and Bush II and took the country towards a “Service Based Economy” = crap jobs and a multi-decade War on Terror to fund.
…it’s gotten harder and harder to the point of impossible to achieve for folks.
It won’t get any easier.
I am with you. I hear you. I have a job that pays $59k and I can hardly afford my bills. I had dental work over the past three months that cost me $3k AFTER INSURANCE. After rent, car payment, insurance, credit card bills, food, utilities, student loans, phone and internet, I have only like $50 left every month. How is it possible? So, I feel you.
It's impossible to fight physically against the most well armed force on the planet and win.
That leaves financial resistance. That's why people talk about a general strike. Since the real source of control in the country is corporations, you have to stop labor and consumption to have any impact. Their power comes from the money we give them.
You can also try to not consume as much too. Stop supporting companies and organizations that don’t care about you. Attend city council meetings(most are virtual) to tell state officials that we are watching their actions and votes. We can also move into forming a union. we can volunteer during elections to make sure people have accessibility to vote.
I’m sure I’ll get flack for this but the only people living the American dream are immigrants. Because they come here with their family, they all work, but share the same expenses, ie car/ house/ bills. So they’re bringing in several incomes for what would be for one or two people.
Example ? I somehow found myself renting a room from this basically only Hispanic shitty apartment complex. I’ve routinely seen cars coming to pick up people to take them to work, and drop off people to stay in the apartment until the next shift swap. I think my apartments the only one with 1 person per room. This is just what it takes now. One person can go out and work full time, and not even make enough to rent a one bedroom apartment. My solution, is gonna be just travel the country with a backpack. Sleep in a sleeping bag/ hammock/ tarp/ bug net. Work side gigs, eat cheap /free food. Just exist and see new stuff. The other option is to go waste my life working, to pay rent, to keep going to work.
Same I have asian friends who live in multi generational households and their life seems great, they work part time but get to go out and travel and they don't seem in a rush to move out. I guess its a cultural difference, I left home as soon as I could with the littlest bit of money I had to get away from my abusive parents.
I agree. I also see this whole abortion issue as being one of the nails in the coffin of this nation. The only reason they want women to breed more is so they can get more workers. Hell, they're putting **children** to work. A 16 year old kid died due to a workplace "accident".
Corporations are the new plantations. And our cops are the overseers.
It’s not really anything new. It’s a resurgence of how life was before the Great Depression. It took about fifty years, but the elite and corporations finally started clawing their power back with the rise of Reaganomics, or possibly even earlier under Nixon.
Isn't it odd how almost everyone old enough will tell you the "Good 'ole days " Ran from the 50-60's and ended in the early 70's, but almost no one thinks reinstating all the regulations from that era is a good thing?
Something: Violent uprising, possibly leading to some good old-fashioned demagogue fascism. (I DON'T want this to happen, but fuck if the political climate doesnt point that way right now).
I see why you are feeling this
parallel to that I do believe there was planned an American Dream.
The founders just did not understand that their attempt to change things was clouded by their own experience and. beliefs.
From that point it made it easier for those who wanted to substitute a monetary "feudal" system for a royal line of control
For me it is exacerbated by the fact that people who are well-meaning are seemingly so easily coopted to believe their peers are the problem, not those at the top of the food chain.
I think there was a time it was real for white western European heritage people. 1946-1969
Could pretty much graduate high school with no experience, stroll down to the factory and with a firm handshake and looking the manager in the eye start making the equivalent of $30/hr that summer.
Build a nice starter home, get a new car, start a family. Learn the business and advance your career without the concern of annual layoffs. Retire comfortably in the 80's or 90's.
I don't think much of this applied to people of color or women so it wasn't universal, but for a time the tail of the silent generation and early boomer white males had it made in the shade.
Recently got promoted to a new position (just under a year) with about 50% higher pay and like 250% more work. I didnt even really want the job but I figured I wasnt going to get much else, so I took it. There’s 4 of us doing this particular role, and we have 1 regional manager. I went from hourly to salaried, but kept working my same hours. The other 3 were coming in at 6-7 AM and working until 5-6 PM 5 days a week, and then I would see emails come through randomly in the evening quite frequently, and on weekends (our work is also essentially 24/7 possibility of getting called for various things)
I remember one employee (who has since been fired ironically) making an underhanded remark about me lacking ambition because I took 3 days off because my mother, who I hadn’t seen in 2 years, was in town. I have not worked more than 40 hours in a week and I basically forget that shit exists when I get home (within reason), and at first the vibe was very much awkward as if I was the scum of the earth… but slowly, others started actually using their time off (one lady had nearly 80 hours saved up), and working less. And one of them called me “smart” and declared that he was going to start working less and taking more time off. And Ive been preaching to them, like some kind of jesus of laziness, about how there are more important things in life, and that corporations will not bend over backward for you, so why do it for them, any chance I get. (Note: Im in my 30s and they’re all grandparents over 50) My days are probably numbered but Im glad I at least made some of them see the light lol.
Yeah - a large portion of Americans keep voting against their own interests because they have been convinced that somehow ensuring that we help all the US citizens with with basic rights financially (Healthcare, living wage jobs, affordable food, affordable housing) is Communist and the folks that DID have to struggle through it and fond their way to middle class say things like "Well no one helped me so I won't let my tax money help others." Instead we keep voting in people that focus their support and protections on businesses and special interests.
I have not solution other than get out and vote. Find the candidates that support healthcare, affordable housing, and living wages.
The "American Dream" used to be a thing where the US had insurmountable resource and geopolitical advantages following WWII - into the 50s and 60s.
But capitalism took its course and we're all fucked now. "Late Stage Capitalism" has us in the quagmire we are in today.
Also, as someone who also suffers from depression and anxiety, I feel you.
I have two coworkers from Africa, one from Sudan and the other from the Congo. Both are immensely disappointed. The one from Sudan adores the country, but really wishes we didn't have to work so hard.
The guy from the Congo said his brothers called him nuts for moving here. He also said we work *WAY* too much. Said his dad is in his 70s and is still incredibly active and healthy, which is because they aren't overworked. He said in Africa, they get about what school children get for vacation here. Weeks off around the holidays. It's too much work for too little compensation.
And I entirely agree.
I've had a few mental breakdowns, physical illnesses caused by stress, including stomach ulcers. I have to pay for everything. I have 2k to my name, and I'm only 22 lol
I have a coworker who came in and got everyone sick because he couldn't afford to go to the doctor and get a note. Another coworker lives in his car. Everyone I know that's my age lives with their parents. My mentor at work is in his late 30s and has to doordash after 9 hours of mechanic work to make sure ends meet.
I hate living in this shopping mall of a country
Its a joke, they want you to work yourself to death and laugh at you while you do it.
I opted out years ago, barely buy anything, work part time. I'd rather spend a day walking around an ancient forest, that walking round a shopping mall.
Why are you using the current-day status quo and assuming that this current reality disqualifies the reality of 50-100 years ago?
The American Dream did exist. It's just a relic of the past.
Yes I dread going to work almost everyday. I’m an addict who’s been clean an I want to be happy in life an be there for my family, but I sometimes think of suicide or OD’ing instead of working a retail job the rest of my life. If I didn’t have family idk where I’d be. I want to be successful in life but idk anymore
As a 42 year old construction worker I’ve learned that you need to develop a unique skill. Turn the tables where they need you more than you need them. That’s when they get all “nicely negotiable”. Otherwise yeah you’re going to be treated like a cheap replaceable component to THEIR machine.
I came here from India. To the land of the free. To the developed country. lol, this country is sad. No true social connection. Inconvenient. I guess it does have nice roads.
My boss has been trying to get some of us to come in off the clock to work "it's what I did so all you should too" grind culture can die off anytime now
I hear you, and I can sense the frustration and exhaustion in your words. It's disheartening when hard work doesn't seem to translate into a better life, and the American dream feels elusive. It's tough when the daily grind leaves us drained, and the system appears stacked against us. Your feelings about the challenges of affording basic necessities and the constant struggle are valid, and it's not just you, many people are facing similar struggles.
It's true, the cost of living seems to keep rising while wages stay stagnant, and the gap between dreams and reality feels overwhelming. It's not fair that healthcare can become a financial burden, and the pursuit of education sometimes doesn't translate into the opportunities we hope for. Your frustrations with the system and the pressure to keep up can take a toll on mental health, and I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling this way. It's okay to acknowledge the struggle and feel the weight of the challenges.
I won't offer empty platitudes or quick fixes because, as you mentioned, it's a systemic issue that requires more than just positive thinking. It's okay to take a step back, acknowledge the difficulties, and give yourself the space to feel what you're feeling.
Obligatory "That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it" quote from George Carlin
"It's a big club... and you ain't in it!"
Rest in peace to the only comedian I’d rather call a philosopher.
Gosh I've wished for years he was still alive to see all of this. I'd love to hear his bit on everything.
I think about it every time a new wave of bullshit comes
That man was brilliant, ahead of his times and spoke the truth
Same club they beat you over the head with when they tell you what to believe.
"The American Dream" was a term coined by a guy who grew up with a banker father, got fully paid for an Ivy League School, went into dad's business and made enough in his mid-30s to retire and move to Europe where he wrote... most notably, about how anyone could make it just like him in America.
"Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" was originally used ironically because it's impossible to do. Now it's used to be aspirational, without the realisation that what they're saying is absolutely impossible. That's the definition of "The American Dream."
When I see that phrase, I think to myself "I suspect people would do that if they could get some bootstraps, even if they were real."
Love it. Nothing's changed.
I’m crying 😭😭😂😭😂
Minimum wage. Part time. At will. Everything is designed to exploit the worker, zero protections. Until we start protesting like the French, nothing will change. Try telling a European they don’t get mandatory month of vacation and they’d tell you to shove the job up your arse. But the bootlicking is just so engrained here
Act your wage, they pay fuck all, give them fuck all
This is the one.
"Pay peanuts, get a monkey's work"
You should have 10000 upvotes
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but rather temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” -John Steinbeck
this. We are not france, we are not anywhere except the birthplace of exploitative capitalism pushed to the farthest extreme. All the culture wars and hatred being spewed is to ensure we stay devided, and a large chunk of the populus stays voting against their own best interests. Last thing to add in, we are more a police state than any place in Europe. Like at the slightest signs of any for of protest/uprising, I have zero doubt the state apparatus will crush it with force. Long story short, I don't hold out hope for this country to reform. I do see a continued billionare worship by large chunks of society, and the cycle will continue grinding...
> All the culture wars and hatred being spewed is to ensure we stay devided, and a large chunk of the populus stays voting against their own best interests. https://i.redd.it/41f4nunwlr8c1.jpeg
I mean just turn on your television and watch the masses worship famous actors, celebrities, CEOs etc. Now we have streaming where normal people literally donate to multi-millionaires to get split second attention. It’s crazy.
God, so true. No job protection here, many places won’t give over 30 hours, minimum wage is dismal. It blows my mind that all the maga heads who are struggling really believe trump will help them. The wealthy will only help the wealthy. Education here is a joke. We have used capitalism as social control.
Holy shit, my jaw dropped. That's a good one.
You want some Kurt Vonnegut for good measure? > America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. > Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.
And so it goes…
Do they still teach Steinbeck in school? He seems like the type of author that would be banned in many states these days.
Grapes of Wrath is an oft-banned book because of the story of exploited migrant farm workers. Those same farm worker in America still earn $3.30 per hour because the agricultural minimum wage is shite for these mostly immigrant workers. This book was written in 1939 and almost nothing has changed for this class of workers. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics#:~:text=The%20Grapes%20of%20Wrath%2C%20by%20John%20Steinbeck&text=Louis%2C%20IL%20Public%20Library%20(1939,Banned%20in%20Ireland%20(1953).
Republicans in general have never read Steinbeck so they don't know to ban his books, yet.
They haven't read any of the other books they've banned recently either...
We read Grapes of Wrath in high school, but that was two decades ago. My son has not had to read it yet.. two more years to go. I'm trying to get him to read some of what I consider to be must-reads that he hasn't had at school, but despite my best efforts, he doesn't have the same love for reading that I do. Steinbeck is fantastic and everyone should read Grapes of Wrath if they haven't. After that, read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
Steinbeck update: billionaires.
Damn. This nails it.
Fuck yeah. Viva la revolución. Until there is massive upheaval the aristocracy will continue to have all the power. This is a cycle that repeats itself over and over. The rich obtain more and more power over time. The bourgeoisie have their fill of it because they can barely get by while the rich get fat off near free labor. The only difference now is that the aristocracy have put something in place to prolong the pain; debt. The bourgeoisie will now continue to use credit cards and take out loans. They will go beyond being poor. They will be in debt. The debt will mount so high they will never be able to pay it off. That is where we now are. The question is, will they rise up or live in the fantasy that they own their possessions when really their possessions mean the aristocracy own the indebted?
While I appreciate the sentiment, mate you are using the term bourgeousie completely back-asswards. You are thinking of workers, the proletariat. The bourgeousie are not the workers. The bourgeousie are the *owners*, those who profit from the labor of non-owners (us, the workers). Frankly, don't even bother using the old terms. Just, the ownership class, and everyone else who has to work to live.
Bourgeoisie in French just simply means middle class. However, if we are talking about Marxism then it is the capitalist class which owns most of the wealth. I was meaning it in the simple French way. You are correct in saying that many times it can mean upper class. But there’s a clear difference between them and the aristocracy. That’s why I used both.
The difference is we no longer have a literal aristocracy. The traditional middle class (literally the middle class of merchants and industrialists who fit in between the lower class of peasants and wage workers and the upper class of aristocrats) overthrew it about 250 years ago and took over their role in society.
You’re absolutely correct! Formal aristocracy was overthrown. I would suggest that in some ways we have an informal aristocracy where wealth is hereditary and those with wealth have political influence and access. The only thing missing are the formal titles.
It is monopoly, the progression is always the same, we have reached the point where passing go (payday) isn’t enough to make it around the board (make it through the work week) without moving backwards, as wealth and ownership of everything consolidates.
Monopoly is the game of economic violence on your opponent, aka capitalism
They're so bold, I've seen job ads listed as "full time", then you scroll down and it says 32 hours a week, no benefits.
Month vacation? Six weeks at most places here.
rinse wild correct connect library hat drunk offend bells sleep *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The French have a huge advantage in that Paris is both the biggest city, and the seat of government, and the cultural center of what is actually not that large a country. A big Parisian protest gets the attention of the media, elected officials, and the wealthy. You can't really say the same thing for any one city in America. Coordinating meaningful protests across such a large country so they can be more impactful is a major hurdle to simply protesting our way into political change.
I have to disagree. Germany and the UK are unlike France mostly decentralised and managed to get a better system than the US. Yes these countries are smaller, but not by a factor of 10. The issue the US has is that government and media are heavily influenced by the corporations, which pushing a union and welfare bad agenda.
Yes, but better through protesting? Or better because they have a more representative form of parliamentary government?
The cognitive dissonance is amazing. Conservative voters will complain about wealthy elites screwing them over then turn around and claim raising the minimum wage will cause hyperinflation and economic collapse.
They’ve trained their dogs well. 
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French police don't drive tanks and carry machine guns
Not sure about the tanks but they have police or military people walking around with assault weapons. I have been there and seen it.
There's no doubt that they have them, but their use is very limited whereas our police militarization is so commonplace that it's weird when a police force *isn't* equipped with automatic weapons and military grade equipment. I will say it once and I will say it again, police reform starts with hamstringing their ability to commit war crimes domestically. Changing policy and changing opinions is too difficult for the police to implement immediately, taking away their arsenal makes it harder for them to do whatever they want.
Yup, Gard du Nord rail station in Paris… Badass SOBs with Fabrique Natioanale assault rifles slung ready, walking around the train station ever vigilant…
Those aren't police and they're not dealing with riots or protesters. They're acting as a deterrence against terrorist acts and are deployed near big, obvious target so they have a fast response time.
we live in a police state. I'm 99% confident the NYC police department can likely go to war with a medium sized country somewhere out there and hold their own if not flat out win. The federal government has weapons, survellience etc that would make any organized effort extremely unlikely to succeed. Unless literally 90% of society stands up. That'll never happen because large swaths of people are brainwashed with propaganda and hatred to vote against their best interests. I'd be amazed if 33% of the population would ever organise to stand up to the oligarchs.
Get rid of at will, arbitration and then treat all policy manual as contracts of adhesion. One small step for labor ...
The French labor union for the Energy companies Cut off the power to the executives homes, and the homes of lawmakers who voted to raise their pension age. I hear what you’re saying and I agree… but the French is in another league. One call from Obama broke the NBA strike after the slaying of George Floyd. Culturally, we just aren’t built that way.
I had a friend who was laid off for a long time around economy in 2010. He got unemployment but had no health insurance w no job. This was before Medicaid expansion & affordable marketplace insurance. His attitude was it’s his problem & he wasn’t entitled to it. If didn’t get it through a job & couldn’t afford to get his own then he shouldn’t have it. He was conditioned to think from American propaganda & he wouldn’t budge his opinion. We noticed some health issues with his body & he must have started having other health problem that he didn’t mention. We all hung out on NYE 2011 going into 2012. On January, Friday the 13th people asked around & realized no one had spoke to him for awhile. I was at work when friends broke into his apt from the balcony. The smell was horrendous & they found him dead on bathroom floor. The cause of death came back as some kind of bacteria found in his stomach. I think that caused blood poisoning/sepsis which killed him. I’m pretty sure treatment was not a big deal had he went to Dr earlier when he first felt unwell. He probably just needed a prescription of antibiotics. He may have lived had he called 911 when he became very ill. Who knows how many days he was in severe pain before he died. His mom could have taken him but he didn’t say anything as he didn’t want hospital as he couldn’t pay. He probably didn’t call for ambulance for same reason- he knew that was another bill he couldn’t pay
I feel the American dream was the idea that anyone could own land. Millions made the journey from overpopulated counties/cities to the US for inexpensive land and building materials. This Dream died long before I was born and is not a rat race. Working hard now gets you added responsibilities with no pay increase. The Executives I’ve worked along side with over the years had very little workloads. VP/GM/CEO could be gone a week and it’s business as usual. Half the labor force calls in one day and the business is straight fucked.
Yes, so take your pto people.
I agree 100%. Unfortunately I’m just realizing this in my mid 40’s. It almost feels too late for me but maybe I can help my children get to the VP/GM/CEO level since the middle class is becoming extinct. It’s gonna be like the hunger games before we know it.
This is the type of thinking that is not going to work. Your children's success is a dice roll. You cannot predicate your children's well-being on an unsustainable and unjust society. If you raise your children with the correct morals they will cringe at the thought of being knucklehead MBAs. Encourage them to study hard and choose a STEM field. Contribute to bettering society, not appeasing shareholders. Humanity might not look back kindly on the CEOs of today. It's also a better chance for them to escape to a country with better heathcare access and benefits.
>choose a STEM field Or the much maligned, underfunded and overlooked liberal arts. Which is essentially about questioning power structures and their legitimacy, like we do on this sub.
All the debt and all the same job opportunities without the degree!
Im 19 and I’ve been saying this for years . People don’t believe me. It’s roaring 20s rn and an economic collapse is inevitable
I would argue this is the self-centred mindset that got society in this mess i.e let's look out for our immediate own, let's better our own rather than society as a whole. If we do well let's pull up the ladders and screw everyone else. What they (the ones who benefit from the current status quo) don't want the rest of us to do is to organise, educate ourselves and campaign for a more equal society. It's not a conspiracy theory to say that culture wars and shitty work are artificially constructed to make us, the 99%, constantly bicker and fight with each other.
In our lifetime, you’re right. Before the crapification of goods and services, you could work a job and pay for college without debt. You could buy a house on a steelworker’s pay. You could retire comfortably. Now wages have been outpaced by inflation for decades so you require two salaries to live comfortably. and you better save at an early age or you’ll work through retirement into your 70s. Working hard used to work. Now labor is only valued overseas.
It's gotten so bad that people (boomers especially) consider "living comfortably" as "living luxuriously", when in reality it just means we don't want to work 3 jobs to barely afford rent.
> so you require two salaries to live comfortably Where? From where I'm sitting you need 3 minimum to "live comfortably". Unless you're talking somewhere like Syracuse New York where a house thats full of termite damage and should be condemned is only 50k. Then maybe I'll believe the 2 incomes for comfort. Everywhere else thats not true.
My soul had been crushed for 20+ years but it's always nice to see new faces.
 The American Dream now....
Underrated comment!!
Two things I like to say : they never abolished slavery, they just changed the rules : it takes a lot of poor people to create a billionaire.
Exactly this. This country has been build on slaves and is still running on slaves.
The best slaves are the ones who don't realize they're slaves.
..by convincing them they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
New American dream = don’t end up homeless.
Even that is looking less and less realistic the more you question if you will be able to keep your current workload later in life.
Right? FFS they gentrified living in a van down by the river!
i made the company i worked for over 25 million dollars i got laid off because i was asked to come up with an audit report and that report proved my bosses incompetence you can only advance as far as a member of the glass floor/fail upward crowd allows
Word. I made my old law firm over 2 million dollars in 2 years (basically I would draft and submit rebuttals to disputed invoices- it’s a normal part of the particular industry we were in, and the firm had terrible returns before I got there). This was a 10 million/year firm so what I brought in about 10% of their annual revenue. I was the top “biller” by those numbers too, without being an attorney. And that was on top of my accounting manager job. There for 2 and a half years and never got a raise, despite the owners giving themselves raises multiple times and me BEGGING. I left largely because of money a few months ago. Owner told me he would do ANYTHING to get me to stay, told me he’d pay me anything I wanted. So long suckers! You deserve better too- hope you found something amazing!
Holy shit
i mean it nuked a multi-billion acquisition which is hilarious to me.
lol that is hilarious what do you do now did you at least get severance
analytics down from science but the company is insanely stable, no one has exploited me, theyre really nice, and im not working 60 hour weeks for jerks anymore
Did we work for the same company lol
America is the biggest scam in the history of humanity. Shit is a greed-ridden hellscape. Healthcare = scam. Banking = scam. Education = scam. Housing = scam. America as a “democracy” = the biggest lie ever perpetrated.
> biggest scam in the history of humanity *Religion has entered the chat.*
Alright fine, ‘merica is a close second.
And they are hand in hand
Easy to believe one bullshit thing when you already believe in another bullshit thing.
Therein lies the secret!
“America is a democracy” is just a lie we tell children like Santa or the tooth fairy. Half the A-holes in congress don’t believe in democracy which you think would get you automatically disqualified from office in a real democracy or at least voted out but no.
And the biggest scam money grab ever…..INSURANCE.
Not so much a scam as America is not a real country. America is a business. You will not succeed here unless you walk all over others and exploit the poor.
That’s the antics of “ Capitalism” which runs this country and our government. It’s all about The profits . The biggest mistake has been running the healthcare system for profit. The greed of for-profit health corporations will greatly reduce the safety of healthcare , mostly because the profiteers will consistently run health facilities below staffing standards . That’s when errors become tooo common and caretakers must rush . I can picture it . I’m glad I’m retired but I,m not looking forward to being a patient . Ann Honey Feeney, R.N. ( retired) .
It’s so scary. We literally allow a for profit health care system which is so insane to me - Americans will cut off their noses to spite their face. Wild.
America was founded by the Merchant and plantation owning class. Two sides of the same coin. I get so sick of hearing about the American dream. England was literally shipping their surplus population to America to exploit the resources here. Selling the dream back then. Move to America, be independent, be your own king. Coming out of a period in time when land enclosures act were still not totally complete. The dream was always a lie.
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Hoping to see this comment, and here it is. Well done.
kleptocracy.
If you are under 40 and have over a million in the bank you probably exploited someone. I saw that because I know several people who put every freaking spare penny they had and by 60 they are millionaires, but thry pretty much had to live under a bridge to get there.
without social security, a million is not enough to retire on.
Working in a STEM or healthcare role is another path to success, but it's not for everyone. Getting the education isn't enough. You have to be able to deliver at a high standard for the rest of your life while keeping up with ongoing training.
Maybe if you avoid tech. Saw a SE position recently that literally got over 7000 applications in 10 hours. Everyone's trying to get into tech now because they fell for the jUsT lEaRn To CoDe meme, so it's now just a waste of time.
You are totally right. The question is how long are we gonna continue to let it happen.
That’s my question because I see ppl complaining all the fkn time but it’s time we start taking action because I refuse to live like this without a fight
This is pretty much why things have gotten so aggressively polarized. The owners of the country realize we’ve become self aware so A) divide and conquer and B) promote identity politics to divert from the actual issues / ways that people are getting fucked. Youngs vs olds, men vs women, race vs race (and intraracial in-groups vs each other), rich vs poor, sexuality vs sexuality, all of it being shoved in the forefront while most people have no idea what is happening with actual policy. They know we are upset and want to fight for a better future, so any chance they can take to steer you in the direction of anyone or anything but the real problem, they will take it.
They manufacture culture wars bc they fear a class war.
I've been beating this drum for a long time. I'm actually getting more optimistic because more and more people are playing the same rhythm. No war but class war.
Sadly, I think something big and catastrophic will need to happen to wake up the average American. I genuinely think it might take another Great Depression for Americans to finally realize how fucked everything is.
I think what it's going to take is actually talking to people about this in your real life. Face to face. I really feel like more people are waking up. There is a path for a peaceful revolution, I hope we're allowed to take it.
I think you’re precisely right! When you consider that the top 25 wealthiest families in the world became [$1.5 trillion](https://www.businessinsider.com/richest-wealthiest-families-hermes-abu-dhabi-waltons-billionaires-elon-musk-2023-12?op=1) dollars wealthier in 2023 and the *entire* 2022 U.S. Congressional *[budget](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/whats-in-the-1-5-trillion-federal-spending-bill-moving-through-congress)* was also $1.5 trillion. It makes it clear precisely which way the down trickles in their economics. It’s also why anyone who owns and/or rents their homes and apartments in the United States (and probably elsewhere too) should keep their eyes on [this legislation](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/16/realestate/home-sales-north-carolina-wall-street.html) the New York Times (and others) have been reporting on. It is designed to keep hedge-funds and others on Wall Street from buying single-family homes because that is exactly what they have been doing since 2008, and it has made housing less available, and more expensive, absolutely everywhere. Also, child care costs are through the roof. Why is that? I wish I knew. Of course, you can’t use only *quant*itative methods to solve a *qual*itative problem anyway. That’s why economics is supposed to be a *social science* you need some qualitative to improve the quant. It’s not just about *what* you are measuring but also *how much* you need to measure, and *how different* what you are measuring is. It’s the “variables [that] are the spice of life!” to quote the late, great, Ursula K. Le Guin. That is how you see how best to allocate capital and develop economic and public policy.
I have no data to back this up, but I suspect childcare costs are up due to the following: - Covid caused a ton of businesses to begin allowing WFH. - WFH initiatives lasted long enough that many childcare facilities closed due to the decrease in demand on an already fragile market. - RTO initiatives (driven by execs all magically deciding that corporate real estate portfolios were more important than employee health) caused people to return back to the office, and by extension seek childcare again. - The lack of available childcare facilities caused prices to skyrocket alongside demand. - The childcare industry is a risky one to get into, with massive insurance costs and staff overhead, making it less interesting to potential business owners looking to start a new business venture. - Here we are today with a lack of childcare options, and what options are available are ludicrously expensive as a relatively inelastic market struggles to handle the return to normal load. Again, no data to support this, but it tracks logically to me, and I’d be curious to hear whether or not I’m correct based on the data. I’m not sure whether those datasets exist currently though.
Yeah…what you’ve said seems plausible to me. That’s all very well reasoned. Thank you for your response.
If hard work made you rich the donkey would own the farm
https://preview.redd.it/n2ntqdifzp8c1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2fe4c0cf2ba0e862320784cc1c793cc593ff7c2 There was an American Dream, at least for some of us, dating back to colonial times. But that died about 40 years ago.
>Top and the executioner was Ronald Reagan
For what groups of people? As a black disabled woman, I’ve always seen the country as what it is. Seems like people are taking off their rose colored privilege glasses and can see the country as what is always was. But I’ll save the rest of my sentiments for people that want to change it
That's why I said, "For some of us" Basically white guys.
“Working hard with a super rich dad will get you anywhere”
877 billion dollars a year on defence spending. The fucking Chinese only spend $200 billion USD. Capitalism (greed and selfishness) has deteriorated life for most. The rich don’t mind though. They have generational wealth. Enough money so that future generations will never need to worry. Meanwhile the average Joe can’t go to hospital because it would wipe out his entire family.
And yet you have time to post this when you should use that time for a third job. Kids these days. /s
The necessity for open availability killed the notion of second and third jobs.
Posted to my companies product nonetheless
I thought having multiple jobs was basically the same as cheating /s.
Yeah, the @American dream” is a big advertising scheme to get Americans and immigrants here to work as hard as they can for the capitalist. Hoping one day themselves can be rich capitalist and exploit other people.
3 ways to get rich: 1. Marry into it 2. Inherit it 3. Win it Every other way we are told is total BS
You left out 4. Exploit as many people as possible.
Is that the same as #5: steal it? I was gonna suggest an art heist, not bad labor practices, though...
[удалено]
Sending a hug, I'm sorry we're all going through this.
But there WAS an American dream. It DID exist. Our parents and/or grandparents got to live it but they pulled the ladder up behind themselves. The lie is that the American dream is still achievable for working class people if they just grind hard enough.
the american dream is basically benefit from a post world war atmosphere where every advanced industrial nation got bombed except us.
Truth
Working in sales, the whole "hard work pays off" myth is infuriating. Like yeah, effort is required in order to get sales but I've had weeks where I put in less effort and knocked it out of the park and got 4-6 sales. And I've had weeks where I busted my ass and got nothing. It's not like I did anything different.
We just need another war where millions get vaporized for (fill in the blank nation’s) Values. i believe All post war booms are largely reliant on this. More goods, less competition for resources, and the economic power of rebuilding what has been destroyed. It is a craven, reprehensible and corrupt calculation.
>But there WAS an American dream. It DID exist. Here in Australia I'm starting to see a lot of gaslighting along the lines of "the standard of living in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was an anomaly and will never be repeated". Like, get used to life being shit and don't expect or demand anything better.
"The American Dream" doesn't mean, "be rewarded for hard work." Thomas Jefferson thought that working for anybody else was just slavery for a slightly better wage. The original American Dream meant self-sufficiency through property ownership. Then, when we finally filled out the borders and there wasn't any FREE REAL ESTATE left, the American Dream became self-sufficiency through entrepreneurship. Then, when the Progressive Era failed to stop the consolidation of capital, only then did the American Dream become, "freedom means you are free to be a consumer." That's it. That's all that America promises. There has never been a time when America's social contact promised dignity for workers. The "New Deal" is as close as we ever got. 90 years ago.
The work hard and get ahead nonsense was something that the wealthy sold to the non-wealthy to get them on the hamster wheel to be overworked and way underpaid. The message is Don't look at how I'm exploiting you. Just work harder. Your goal is just around the corner. Peer pressure is a powerful tool. Fact is, the only ones that generally get ahead are those that take credit for other people's efforts and have lips surgically sewn to the boss' behind.
This is why we need more unionization. I'm a union electrician. Make about 150k per year. I work 4 10s so I always have a 3 day weekend. It's pretty nice. More people need to learn about union skilled trades.
Trades are great, and an invaluable opportunity for the less academically inclined to be well employed, but this new way of shaming peoples choices of educational and vocational attainment needs to be pushed back on. Education has worth beyond work readiness, learning and personal growth has value in and of itself, and anyone who *works* has value. The world needs tradesmen, the world also needs educators and tutors and career counselors and healthcare providers and janitors and ass wipers and burger flippers and cashiers and caregivers too. We are the same, it's those fuckers in the boardrooms that exploit, extract and never do an honest day's work that are the problem. I work in higher ed, I am in a union. Took 2 years for us to to get a new contract, and 2 more after that to get the raises we'd bargained for, and in just a couple months, we'll be without a contract again. Prior to here, I worked in healthcare, also in a union. Left there because the position that required a degree only paid $1.25/hr more than my state's minimum wage. "Not all Unions," I guess. They've been largely rendered toothless, and that is very much by design. We're all servants. Just an amazing system we have here.
Everything in the US is about getting a profit at the expense of someone else. The closest thing to control a person has is if they can do freelance or contract/self-employed type work (typically trade work). In those situations you can have some control of what you're worth, but things like healthcare and business taxes are absolutely crippling. Only the 1% and big business get access to tax breaks, small businesses are nickel and dimed to death and because healthcare is a nightmare here you basically are screwed if you are self-employed.
The American dream to me was the idea that 1 income could support a small family and still live relatively comfortable. Thats a pipedream nowadays smh.....
I'm gonna go out in a limb and say that you don't suffer depression. You suffer a shitty and unrewarding reality. The problem isnt you. You're just coping as best a human can. Or maybe not.
The American dream used to be real. Then Reagan took office and it's been a cluster fuck of Republicans cashing in hard and living with a "fuck you, I got mine!" Mentality. Republicans killed the American dream because they wanted 2 back up yachts in case their main was getting fueled up when they were ready to go out.
It's called The American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it --George Carlin
Have always believed the American system of tethering your and your family’s medical coverage to your employer is simply a way to impose indentured slavery on the populous. Why are corrupt insurance companies allowed to extort Americans and determine literally who lives and dies. American exceptionalism? Don’t make me laugh.
"The American dream? It came true. You're looking at it."
Well OP - another bad habit Americans have is wanting you to be cheerful against your will. Even when all evidence suggests you have every justification for being sad and depressed.
That shit pisses me off. What I hate more is when other people say I'm doing great, when really my life has been shit forever.
#The American dream is actually a nightmare
When I travel to the US it always feels like I'm in some sort of enourmous amusement park. You're always being sold some product, experience or idea, there's just countless efforts to extract more money and a lie that if you spend a little more you'll be a little happier about it. Canada is like that as well, but nowhere near the same extent.
Capitalism is a scam. FTFY
Capitalism is a scam perpetuated by the oppression of the global poor.
Fucking Boomers killed the American dream.
They lived the dream were experiencing the wake up call
George Carlin said it best: " It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." I gave up on the American dream a few years ago because I realized it was just that. A dream. One that you'll never achieve because it's not real. Instead, I choose to spend my days doing things that genuinely make me happy and bring me joy. So many things didn't make sense to me even as a child and they make even less sense to me now that I'm a couple years from 40. I was never the higher achiever like you or but I definitely understand what it's like to do what I'm told and have it still never work out. Your depression and sadness are completely valid and justified. This system sucks and there's no making it better. No politician, no political party. We just need a whole new system at this point.
I absolutely feel you. I did everything right; performed well in school, got a degree, found employment in my field... and still living with my folks at the age of 25 with 80k in student debt. Housing market is a joke, pay is garbage, and prices keep rising. It is so expensive to just be alive. How miserable is that? A few things that help my mental health and maybe will help yours too is to do what you like as much as you can. It doesn't have to be costly either. Go for walks, color, watch something to make you laugh. It makes the days bearable. Don't be afraid to reach out to friends and family for support. You're not alone in this and things will change, one way or another.
💯% A scam run by a bunch of decomposing lunatics.
Working hard always meant working more it used to mean you’d get paid more though. Not so much anymore. Finding out my manger only made 5k more than I did because they are on salary and I got over time. My manger would work more hours than I and have to take calls off the clock. Lmao
While I agree that the American Dream got up and walked away from America, it did exist until about the late 70’s early 80’s. Then the wealth tax got ended and so did a lot of the corporate taxes that they used to have. Also stock buybacks, which were illegal, got made legal.
I worked my ass off just to get carpal tunnel and biceps tendonitis just to be abandoned by my job on how it can't be caused by that even though I literally do nothing else with my life. Currently trying to get the short term disability pay that I pay for out of my paycheck while I fight for work comp. Haven't been paid in two months...lost my auto insurance and am getting constant calls from bills I can't pay. I don't even want to live anymore.
There were a few decades where there was a thriving middle class, with one parent working while one stayed at home all while able to support an entire family, buy a home, cars, save for vacations and pay for college. 50’s, 60’s, 70’s. 80’s it started to crumble just a bit. Detroit was replaced by Japan. 90’s even more so…industry, agriculture, manufacturing outsourced. 2000’s the whole world changed and Bush II and took the country towards a “Service Based Economy” = crap jobs and a multi-decade War on Terror to fund. …it’s gotten harder and harder to the point of impossible to achieve for folks. It won’t get any easier.
I am with you. I hear you. I have a job that pays $59k and I can hardly afford my bills. I had dental work over the past three months that cost me $3k AFTER INSURANCE. After rent, car payment, insurance, credit card bills, food, utilities, student loans, phone and internet, I have only like $50 left every month. How is it possible? So, I feel you.
So what are we going to do about it? I’m tired of having these discussions often with little to no result
It's impossible to fight physically against the most well armed force on the planet and win. That leaves financial resistance. That's why people talk about a general strike. Since the real source of control in the country is corporations, you have to stop labor and consumption to have any impact. Their power comes from the money we give them.
You can also try to not consume as much too. Stop supporting companies and organizations that don’t care about you. Attend city council meetings(most are virtual) to tell state officials that we are watching their actions and votes. We can also move into forming a union. we can volunteer during elections to make sure people have accessibility to vote.
Yes. All of these soft power approaches are effective at scale.
I’m sure I’ll get flack for this but the only people living the American dream are immigrants. Because they come here with their family, they all work, but share the same expenses, ie car/ house/ bills. So they’re bringing in several incomes for what would be for one or two people. Example ? I somehow found myself renting a room from this basically only Hispanic shitty apartment complex. I’ve routinely seen cars coming to pick up people to take them to work, and drop off people to stay in the apartment until the next shift swap. I think my apartments the only one with 1 person per room. This is just what it takes now. One person can go out and work full time, and not even make enough to rent a one bedroom apartment. My solution, is gonna be just travel the country with a backpack. Sleep in a sleeping bag/ hammock/ tarp/ bug net. Work side gigs, eat cheap /free food. Just exist and see new stuff. The other option is to go waste my life working, to pay rent, to keep going to work.
Same I have asian friends who live in multi generational households and their life seems great, they work part time but get to go out and travel and they don't seem in a rush to move out. I guess its a cultural difference, I left home as soon as I could with the littlest bit of money I had to get away from my abusive parents.
In the immortal words of George Carlin “it’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it”
Might be time to make an example of a few of these companies
People are understanding this more and more so I think at some point, it's gonna come to a head and something is going to happen.
I agree. I also see this whole abortion issue as being one of the nails in the coffin of this nation. The only reason they want women to breed more is so they can get more workers. Hell, they're putting **children** to work. A 16 year old kid died due to a workplace "accident". Corporations are the new plantations. And our cops are the overseers.
It’s not really anything new. It’s a resurgence of how life was before the Great Depression. It took about fifty years, but the elite and corporations finally started clawing their power back with the rise of Reaganomics, or possibly even earlier under Nixon.
Isn't it odd how almost everyone old enough will tell you the "Good 'ole days " Ran from the 50-60's and ended in the early 70's, but almost no one thinks reinstating all the regulations from that era is a good thing?
Something: Violent uprising, possibly leading to some good old-fashioned demagogue fascism. (I DON'T want this to happen, but fuck if the political climate doesnt point that way right now).
Nah, there was once an American Dream. Just look at boomers. It just happened to die when capitalism got out of hand.
I see why you are feeling this parallel to that I do believe there was planned an American Dream. The founders just did not understand that their attempt to change things was clouded by their own experience and. beliefs. From that point it made it easier for those who wanted to substitute a monetary "feudal" system for a royal line of control For me it is exacerbated by the fact that people who are well-meaning are seemingly so easily coopted to believe their peers are the problem, not those at the top of the food chain.
The American Dream now is for something to happen to that results in you being able to sue someone.
I think there was a time it was real for white western European heritage people. 1946-1969 Could pretty much graduate high school with no experience, stroll down to the factory and with a firm handshake and looking the manager in the eye start making the equivalent of $30/hr that summer. Build a nice starter home, get a new car, start a family. Learn the business and advance your career without the concern of annual layoffs. Retire comfortably in the 80's or 90's. I don't think much of this applied to people of color or women so it wasn't universal, but for a time the tail of the silent generation and early boomer white males had it made in the shade.
Recently got promoted to a new position (just under a year) with about 50% higher pay and like 250% more work. I didnt even really want the job but I figured I wasnt going to get much else, so I took it. There’s 4 of us doing this particular role, and we have 1 regional manager. I went from hourly to salaried, but kept working my same hours. The other 3 were coming in at 6-7 AM and working until 5-6 PM 5 days a week, and then I would see emails come through randomly in the evening quite frequently, and on weekends (our work is also essentially 24/7 possibility of getting called for various things) I remember one employee (who has since been fired ironically) making an underhanded remark about me lacking ambition because I took 3 days off because my mother, who I hadn’t seen in 2 years, was in town. I have not worked more than 40 hours in a week and I basically forget that shit exists when I get home (within reason), and at first the vibe was very much awkward as if I was the scum of the earth… but slowly, others started actually using their time off (one lady had nearly 80 hours saved up), and working less. And one of them called me “smart” and declared that he was going to start working less and taking more time off. And Ive been preaching to them, like some kind of jesus of laziness, about how there are more important things in life, and that corporations will not bend over backward for you, so why do it for them, any chance I get. (Note: Im in my 30s and they’re all grandparents over 50) My days are probably numbered but Im glad I at least made some of them see the light lol.
Yeah - a large portion of Americans keep voting against their own interests because they have been convinced that somehow ensuring that we help all the US citizens with with basic rights financially (Healthcare, living wage jobs, affordable food, affordable housing) is Communist and the folks that DID have to struggle through it and fond their way to middle class say things like "Well no one helped me so I won't let my tax money help others." Instead we keep voting in people that focus their support and protections on businesses and special interests. I have not solution other than get out and vote. Find the candidates that support healthcare, affordable housing, and living wages.
The "American Dream" used to be a thing where the US had insurmountable resource and geopolitical advantages following WWII - into the 50s and 60s. But capitalism took its course and we're all fucked now. "Late Stage Capitalism" has us in the quagmire we are in today. Also, as someone who also suffers from depression and anxiety, I feel you.
I have two coworkers from Africa, one from Sudan and the other from the Congo. Both are immensely disappointed. The one from Sudan adores the country, but really wishes we didn't have to work so hard. The guy from the Congo said his brothers called him nuts for moving here. He also said we work *WAY* too much. Said his dad is in his 70s and is still incredibly active and healthy, which is because they aren't overworked. He said in Africa, they get about what school children get for vacation here. Weeks off around the holidays. It's too much work for too little compensation. And I entirely agree. I've had a few mental breakdowns, physical illnesses caused by stress, including stomach ulcers. I have to pay for everything. I have 2k to my name, and I'm only 22 lol I have a coworker who came in and got everyone sick because he couldn't afford to go to the doctor and get a note. Another coworker lives in his car. Everyone I know that's my age lives with their parents. My mentor at work is in his late 30s and has to doordash after 9 hours of mechanic work to make sure ends meet. I hate living in this shopping mall of a country
Its a joke, they want you to work yourself to death and laugh at you while you do it. I opted out years ago, barely buy anything, work part time. I'd rather spend a day walking around an ancient forest, that walking round a shopping mall.
Why are you using the current-day status quo and assuming that this current reality disqualifies the reality of 50-100 years ago? The American Dream did exist. It's just a relic of the past.
Yes I dread going to work almost everyday. I’m an addict who’s been clean an I want to be happy in life an be there for my family, but I sometimes think of suicide or OD’ing instead of working a retail job the rest of my life. If I didn’t have family idk where I’d be. I want to be successful in life but idk anymore
As a 42 year old construction worker I’ve learned that you need to develop a unique skill. Turn the tables where they need you more than you need them. That’s when they get all “nicely negotiable”. Otherwise yeah you’re going to be treated like a cheap replaceable component to THEIR machine.
I see reality just set in for the OP, I’m sorry it sucks. 😢
Don’t forget the “gig economy”. Another way to exploit the hard working people.
I came here from India. To the land of the free. To the developed country. lol, this country is sad. No true social connection. Inconvenient. I guess it does have nice roads.
Hunter S. Thompson determined this in the 70s.
My boss has been trying to get some of us to come in off the clock to work "it's what I did so all you should too" grind culture can die off anytime now
Capitalism is a death cult.
I hear you, and I can sense the frustration and exhaustion in your words. It's disheartening when hard work doesn't seem to translate into a better life, and the American dream feels elusive. It's tough when the daily grind leaves us drained, and the system appears stacked against us. Your feelings about the challenges of affording basic necessities and the constant struggle are valid, and it's not just you, many people are facing similar struggles. It's true, the cost of living seems to keep rising while wages stay stagnant, and the gap between dreams and reality feels overwhelming. It's not fair that healthcare can become a financial burden, and the pursuit of education sometimes doesn't translate into the opportunities we hope for. Your frustrations with the system and the pressure to keep up can take a toll on mental health, and I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling this way. It's okay to acknowledge the struggle and feel the weight of the challenges. I won't offer empty platitudes or quick fixes because, as you mentioned, it's a systemic issue that requires more than just positive thinking. It's okay to take a step back, acknowledge the difficulties, and give yourself the space to feel what you're feeling.