The past decade American consumers enjoyed the lower cost items now made by lower cost workers overseas. But consumers ignored the American workers who now watched good paying jobs vanish.
As Japan designed the fuel efficient Prius, Germany experimented with solar energy, and China built wind turbines, we made the 8 mpg Hummer.
When we needed affordable low cost housing for now lower paid workers, we built McMansions. By tossing aside the regulations written to keep a repeat of the Great Depression from returning, we once again enjoyed our Illusion of Prosperity (eerily like the Roaring Twenties and Enron.)
The Boom was fun; now we must live through the Bust cycle.
Middle class salaries have flat-lined over the past 20 years but as long as 401k’s soared along with the stock market and housing bubbles, no one seemed to notice or care.
Reality takes longer to build than illusions. The world’s trust in America’s financial integrity is harder to rebuild once people realized banking and Wall Street were allowed to become a Madoff-style house of cards.
Politicians warn of the evils of over regulation while they once again ignore that it was the lack of necessary regulation that got us in this mess.
It is your vote, your choice. Try not to once again fall for the illusion.
Kathie Cheney
Peachtree City, Ga.
