Reply #12: When people say the economy is good

[stanwyck]

ask for specifics. Ask how many Americans have health insurance. Ask how many Americans have adequate reserves for retirement. Ask how increased gasoline prices, home heating prices, and rising college costs impact family budgets...compared to those measly tax cuts for the middle-class. Not exactly keeping up, right? Sure, the economy is booming for the oil execs. And those feeding off the teats of the military industrial complex. But not for middle America. People who work for companies for twenty years or more could lose their pensions.
And then there's the under-employed.
The people I know who have lost their jobs, and there are many, have found other jobs. But they're less than what they had before. They pay less. And the benefits are less. If at all. Under-employment is pervasive. There are jobs. But they don't pay well. American workers have little clout.
People may demonize unions. But without them, our country wouldn't have built a large, thriving middle-class as quickly. The policemen, firemen, teamsters, teachers, and factory workers organized for living wages, pensions, and benefits.
Now. We're being de-valued. We're being marked down. We're all losing ground. And half of our number are siding with the forces that are causing our decline.
Hard to understand, isn't it?