Do people remember Richard Nixon? Were you in your middle or late teens during Richard Nixon? If not, then you don't remember the details of the Richard Nixon era. I don't know why this started during the Richard Nixon era, but it did...
During the Richard Nixon era, something changed. Changed in how the job market interacted with the worker. Or maybe I should put it, how business as usual stopped being business as usual.
What I remember for one, was how Master Card and Visa (mass plastic credit) came into being. And how the climate of "the business merger" born from infancy suddenly grew into adulthood. Adulthood on steroids.
Every business wanted to cover their bottom line by buying and owning something unrelated to their line of business. McDonalds didn't just want to make hamburgers, they also wanted to own telecommunication companies. K-Mart didn't just want to sell shoes and shirts, k-Mart also wanted to own television stations and public utilities.
And so on, etc etc, and so on.
If K-Mart's sales declined, they had their "other" properties to rely on.
And if sales did not decline, then they had the capital to expand like no one imagined.
And the same story with McDonalds. And the same story for hundreds, thousands of other companies originally in business only to sell that one item they were famous for.
Once the merging began, it never stopped. It didn't just grow, it exploded.
And for the first time in our American history, more people were out of a job not because of poor job performance, but out of a job because that job ended, and consumed by "the merger".
There was a time if someone you knew lost their job, you immediately asked "what did you do?", because people never lost a job unless they screwed up.
During the 1970's and more so the 1980's, good hard working people lost their job not because of personal job performance, but because that job itself went away. The company closed. The company merged. Blue collar jobs, union jobs, were suddenly shipped offshore.
Bye bye to the 1950's when dad was the only bread earner in the household needed to make ends meet. Needed to buy the house. Needed to purchase that family car. Needed to save for the kids college.
Once upon a time families took vacations every Summer. Mom could stay at home all day. Mom was there when the kids came home from school. Everyone had dinner at the same time, together, around the old dinning room table.
And every house built in the 1950's had.... (get this).... A ONE CAR GARAGE. They only needed one car.
I believe THAT era is what the old folks refer to as THE GOOD OLD DAYS. That time they long to go back to. And some people still actually believe those GOOD OLD DAYS can be once again if we just elect the right president. Or put the right political party in charge.
Happy days are here again. The president (insert name) will save us all.
Dream-on.....
Those days will never be again, not in this country.
During the Richard Nixon era, suddenly old dads income just didn't cut it any longer.
Dad had to work a second job to even come close to making ends meet.
But that too wasn't enough. Soon it was necessary for old mom to untie that apron, lock the front door, and head off to work herself.
Something happened during that period back in the Richard Nixon era that changed the American landscape FOREVER.
And it has become harder and harder, more challenging, year after year for that once typical middle class one car one wage earner American household.
Very soon, regardless of which party is in power, or that man or woman sitting in the oval office, very soon that middle class family will take yet another hit. Possibly the final fatal hit. It has already started happening, and for some time now.
Families losing their homes, kids no longer planning for college, more and more debt for everyone in that 99% bracket.
The silly thing is, there are still people doing quite well under the old rules. And those very same people are about to realize the hard cold reality of the future. They too will join the masses of people now asking "what the hell happened?".
I could go on, so and I will....
That once secure union based retirement pension has been replaced by the 401K.
Everyone has a 401K. And notably, only a 401K.
And that 401K is like a sitting duck, with a false sense of security, floating on the pond, ready to be pounce on by a well hidden extremely hungry wild animal.
People actually believe that retirement nest egg is going to survive the appetite of the greedy, hungry, and ever lurking wild animal known as the economy. If people actually believe that, then your chances are no netter than that poor sitting duck.
If people believe social security is going to survive into those golden retirement years, about four more years of either political party will bring a screeching halt to that.
It started with the slow destruction of the middle class, and has been eating its way up the ladder ever since.
Whether it started with union busting, home foreclosures, college dreams lost, bailouts, mom working, two car garages, owned politicians, or that giant sucking sound Ross Perot warned about... Who knows?
But we all know where it will end.... That little carefree ducky is about to be ducky no more.
It doesn't matter if the middle class creates more jobs, or the rich.
All three are on that hungry wild animal's dinner menu.
