“My Two Cents”
By Andy Sutton

6/23/2006

I have heard the term 'American Dream' tossed about quite a bit recently as analysts, making somewhat sundry comparisons with yesteryear, try to justify our current predicament in terms of another time. I find this saddening as I realize that the sun is indeed setting on my perception of the American Dream.

It occurs to me that we use a significant array of verbiage to define our relative positions in society. We use words like affluence, SES, middle-class, inflation etc. You get the idea. What I find to be even more curious is how the definitions of these words have been changed over the decades, almost always to the detriment of working families, and most certainly the 'American Dream'.

In the 50's and 60's, the 'American Dream' was defined as a home in the suburbs, a neatly clipped yard, a garage, a stay-at-home mom, a dad with a decent job, a pension plan and a couple of kids. Mom and dad took on little (if any) debt beyond their mortgage, and they used strict formulas to calculate how much home they could afford, rather than listening to the Captains of the Titanic at Fannie Mae and HUD. There was also a curious rule they used: If we don't have the money, we don't buy it. Wow, what a novel concept.

This notion stayed somewhat intact throughout the 70's and 80's even though we saw many women enter the workforce in what is perhaps one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public. In my opinion, this was the start of the decline of the family. I realize that I'm already skating on thin ice with many of the women who read this column, but hear me out. We were told that you were needed in the workforce, not at home. We were told that having latchkey kids was ok, and that dinner together wasn't such a big deal. After all you could shuffle your kids off to their rooms for a dinner in front of the TV and get some relaxation time after a hard day. Inflation was used as a weapon against you, forcing you in many cases to take jobs because one income no longer made ends meet. Families, through a lack of understanding of the forces that drive money, it's worth and inflation began to borrow to make up for shortcomings in their monthly balance sheets. Once this trend began, it was easy to begin sliding down the slope of instant gratification. This was a vicious attack on the family, perpetrated by elite who wanted only one thing from us - money. I have every bit of respect for working women and will proudly admit that my wife makes more money than I do. That doesn't bug me in the least, nor does it detract from my sense of worth. What bugs me is the affect this has had on the family. This sad reality is not the American Dream.

Today, the American Dream is almost unrecognizable from the dream I grew up with. We now strive for bigger and bigger homes, larger, more expensive cars, pools, TV's, cell phones that think for us (there's another fusillade on cell phones coming later this month), and every other sort of gadget imaginable. This would be fine of course if we didn't have to sell ourselves, our families and our souls out to achieve it. Excess is King, profligate spending, Queen and sound fiscal responsibility, the Joker. The American Dream of today is mortgaged, borrowed, and leveraged to the hilt, built with the savings of a distant people, who, for now continue to agreeably pass the fruits of their labor to us so that we can continue our ostentatious and imprudent lifestyle.

As a society, we need to make some serious changes. Live simpler. I know this is blasphemy to many people, but I strongly believe it is perhaps the only thing that stands between us and total financial ruin. Don't count on the rest of the world to finance our extravagant lifestyle forever. Clearly, the twilight of the real 'American Dream' is at hand. Indeed, it is time to get back to basics.

Andy Sutton holds an MBA in Economics from Moravian College and is a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon International Honor Society in Economics.

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