Circling the Drain: America's Middle Class

The United States is in serious trouble. Sustained high unemployment; stagnant incomes of middle-class families; increased poverty; decimated home values; out-of-control federal deficits and debt; unsustainable entitlement programs; unprecedented numbers of home foreclosures and bankruptcy filings; two expensive, unresolved wars-now the longest in our history; soaring costs of oil and gasoline; decaying cities; states on the verge of bankruptcy; runaway healthcare costs; unworkable...
More Description

The United States is in serious trouble. Sustained high unemployment; stagnant incomes of middle-class families; increased poverty; decimated home values; out-of-control federal deficits and debt; unsustainable entitlement programs; unprecedented numbers of home foreclosures and bankruptcy filings; two expensive, unresolved wars-now the longest in our history; soaring costs of oil and gasoline; decaying cities; states on the verge of bankruptcy; runaway healthcare costs; unworkable immigration policies; corrupt corporate behavior; the list goes on and on. The potential effects of these unresolved issues are of such a magnitude that they threaten to destroy life as we have known it here in the United States.As the problems grow more numerous, our elected officials engage in petty, partisan one-upmanship. Each side holds to ideological positions that often emanate from the extreme edges of the Party and, therefore, probably do not reflect the beliefs or concerns of the majority of the Party's members. The intransigence of the parties results in legislative gridlock in both chambers of Congress-gridlock in which endless hours are spent passing bills sponsored by each respective party's ideologues in one chamber of Congress that cannot possibly make it through the other chamber-and, as a result nothing happens. Problems remain unsolved and the Country keeps going downhill each passing day.In recent years, political discussion in the United States has become progressively more vitriolic and polarizing. Political factions attack those whose beliefs differ from theirs. Internet blogs and emails spread ever-increasing numbers of hate-filled diatribes against politicians and people who do not share the sponsor's social, cultural, philosophical, economic, or religious views and beliefs. Most television and radio news programs, instead of providing unbiased, factual information to the general public, follow an agenda of broadcasting structured messages, opinions, and materially-distorted information that substitutes fiction and lies for fact and truthfulness to targeted audiences.If the problems facing the Country today are to be solved in a way that serves the interests of the majority of the population, all citizens have to fulfill their voting obligations by becoming informed about the issues and the candidates and then they must show up at the polling booths on election day. The upcoming election cycles-those ending in 2012, 2014 and 2016-are especially critical because if many of today's most pressing problems are not solved by 2020, America's middle-class will no longer be circling the drain; it will have been flushed into economic oblivion.We think that our political discourse must change. We must do away with canned slogans and distorted information and focus on real facts and realistic, doable solutions. Given today's technology and easy access to computers and the Internet, citizens can readily get real facts. Throughout the book, we purposely used information (data) from sources that can and are used by, and are understandable by, most people. The majority of the data and historical descriptions in the book come from the United States Census Bureau, Federal Election Commission, the annual reports of various corporate entities, the Center for Responsive Politics, Wikipedia and other reference sources; all of which are readily available on the internet.The situation in the United States is dire for most of us right now. The living-standard of our children, grandchildren, and future generations depends on how we solve the problems that, in large part, we ourselves have created. If we fail to do so, America's best days are behind us. But, if we act thoughtfully; if we take on the hard issues; if we hold our elected officials accountable; if we root out and eliminate corporate crooks; if we get our economic house in order, then maybe, maybe, our better days still lie ahead.