lifestyle
The American Economy, 25 Years Ago
The politicians of today are the children of depression-era parents, world war veterans, and white, privileged suburban families. Their parents paid Black women to leave their families and come clean their houses. These children watched hippies avoid the draft, black families redlined into ghettos and low-income areas, (kept in their place), and there were hardly any Hispanics or Middle Eastern people within a 20 mile radius. Now they seek to return to that time.
In their efforts the revert back to their easy privilege lives, these politicians are writing laws and policies that disenfranchise, neutralize, or altogether eliminate people of color from American life. But in the process, they are hurting white working families, but they do not seem to care. The cost of living today is three to 4 times higher than it was 25 years ago, and that is not normal, it is planned that way; to push the low-income, working poor to the bottom to make room at the top for the rich.
In 1994, the economy was affordable because the cost of living was as follows:
1. There was such a thing as a 1 income family. $7.25 an hour was a livable wage; $10 an hour was awesome.
2. Gas was $1.10 a gallon.
3. Employer health insurance was no more than $120 per month or $60 every two weeks, or $30 a week for an entire family at 100% coverage.
4. Car insurance was as low as $18 per month; (if your state required it at all).
5. A car note was never over $250 a month.
6. Electricity, gas, water and phone bills never exceeded $200 a month.
7. Public school was all free, no fees, supply list, or lab fees.
8. The food was a better quality and people did not get sick as often, or depressed, or needed sleep aids.
9. A three bedroom was at least $400 a month, maybe five.
10. A house was sold at true market prices, from $60,000 to $120,000, not a half million or 3 million.
11. Jobs were plentiful; three or four call-backs for interviews a week; (hardly no employment agencies).
12. Day care was affordable.
What happened you ask? First 9/11 happened and fear gripped the country. Bush enacted policies and laws that strangled the average citizen and wealth began moving closer to the top instead of being distributed amongst the people. Wages froze, corporations got greedy and they learned to capitalize off the fears of the people. The children of the war-time parents saw the world through their spoiled eyes and sought to return to the days where there were no foreigners and Blacks were back in their place.
The culture war started and the left and the right fought for the soul of the country throughout the first 10 years of the millennium and in the mean time the wages sat still and corporations got greedier. Both, the left and the right, got rich while working families struggled harder and as the politician's riches grew so did their apathy for the country. Now we are faced with a crisis that policy is not solving. Fear, racial animosity, and greed has captured this country and sent it into a downward spiral.
America will not return to a state of normalcy because the minds of the politicians are too far gone to understand how complex greed has made life. Selfishness, indifference, and privilege rule them and the people, regardless of what race, will have to reach back and remind them how life can actually be.
© May. 2017
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