The truth about America.

[Beanz]

I guess my life isn't bad, lived in America all my life, just got back from a 2 week vacation. Have retirement savings, a place to call home and never miss out on anything I really need. Times are certainly changing though and it's true you can not do with two incomes what people used to do with one. If there's one thing I know it's that you must change with the times, yesterdays answers don't correspond with tomorrow's problems. Also it seems that the people that are struggling the most in the modern world spend all day on youtube.

What about your kids though? And everybody else's kids?

That is a dumb argument. What about your parents and everybody else's parents ? We create our own reality and that goes for generations also. If you do not believe this then you must be heavily invested in the idea of material things providing some kind of security. This is an Illusion much like the vaunted ideals of Democracy.

[Kirkland Laing]

I guess my life isn't bad, lived in America all my life, just got back from a 2 week vacation. Have retirement savings, a place to call home and never miss out on anything I really need. Times are certainly changing though and it's true you can not do with two incomes what people used to do with one. If there's one thing I know it's that you must change with the times, yesterdays answers don't correspond with tomorrow's problems. Also it seems that the people that are struggling the most in the modern world spend all day on youtube.

What about your kids though? And everybody else's kids?

That is a dumb argument. What about your parents and everybody else's parents ? We create our own reality and that goes for generations also. If you do not believe this then you must be heavily invested in the idea of material things providing some kind of security. This is an Illusion much like the vaunted ideals of Democracy.

I'm talking about being able to provide a roof over the head of your family, feed clothe and educate them to at least the standard you had and then watching them being able to have at least the same standard of living as you did.

The fact that globalisation has increased job insecurity, cut wages in developed countries and is continuing to arbitrage western labour rates down to Asian levels for the forseeable future is actually the number one concern of Americans. It's their number one concern despite a 24/7 media culture of trying to keep them terrified about something, whether it's Saddam's fearsome WMD or suitcase nukes or whatever.

And they're right to be concerned. Presumably you would like your kids to have at least the same opportunities and standard of living as you had. If the economy wasn't getting bigger then there's a concrete reason why this couldn't happen. But the economy is getting bigger, just the benefits of economic and productivity growth are going entirely to less than 1% of the population.

Future generations will have decreased job security, a large percentage will experience long periods of unemployment/reduced hours/low wages and there'll be a much-decreased social safety net for them to rely on to house and feed their families in these times. Are you OK with that or is this a dumb argument?