Americans seem to have some unfortunate belief that by simply being Americans, they are entitled to a high and increasing standard of living. Not true. That might have appeared to be the situation for some decades, but they will be in for a terribly unpleasant surprise. An increasingly global economy is a fact, and while the subject is somewhat overworked, it's true that Americans cannot expect to be paid handsomely for the same work that Asians are prepared to do at a far lower wage. Neither can companies in India, China, etc., hope to be able to continue to pay those low wages forever. There will most likely be some form of a "meeting in the middle" over the coming years with Asian wages rising and American wages falling. That's great news for Asians, but bad news for many Americans.
To a large degree, Americans are living off the legacy of our former free-market, small-government, capitalist economy which was the engine that provided the growing standard of living Americans used to experience and modern day Americans seem to expect. I say former, because we have anything but that anymore. The central government tries to regulate wealth creation while producing no wealth whatsoever. Its major products are regulations, failed programs, and aggressive foreign wars. None of these has a positive impact on the prosperity of this nation, and I believe that the "military-industrial complex" that President Eisenhower warned us about might be the most detrimental factor of all. Anyway, given his military experience he sure should have known all about it. War is unbelievably expensive, and as we've seen, once we start one the attitude becomes one of "we must have victory so we need to spend whatever is necessary to achieve it." Seems like a path to
national bankruptcy. Imagine what could have been done with the cash we've spent on these wars. And that doesn't even include the social costs to individuals and families.
The point is, downsizing on a personal level is going to be the new thing to do, whether we like it or not. An ever improving standard of living comes from private savings and investment, hard work, and a political environment established by a government that does not act like business growth will continue no matter what the government might choose to do to impede it. To the degree those things are missing, so also will growing personal wealth be outside our grasp.
One doesn't have to like the laws of economics, and one may employ the services of those with flawed views to obtain the answers one wants, but the facts remain the same.
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