The American Dream Gets a Facelift

“No matter who wins, we, as a nation, lose” was the slogan of an American party about 40 years ago. Seven weeks earlier, after the first days of the financial crisis, perhaps the 40 million stock exchange participants in USA, the same ones who were faced with loss, also the other million people who suddenly saw their retirement saving accounts being “ripped off” would have been ready to share their Marxist co nationals’ skepticism – the American dream went into a coma.

For decades, houses haven’t been considered cheap in America, but at the same time not so hard to pay for, especially for the two million debtors who, by the end of 2009, are expected to hand over their homes to the banks, which will have no one to resell them to, anyway. However, all the other things – food, gas, school taxes and the price of medical services – are going up. Where can you cut down on expenses ask the same people who no longer save up or those who have an average debt of over 8000 dollars on their credit card. Hence, where can you take more from ask the people who already work 12 hours a day and only sleep four hours a night

Perhaps for the first time in the history of “The Land of Opportunities”, the American dream has been snatched from the people, who are left to feel the desperation of not being able to help their own situations. And maybe they don’t even have anyone to blame, as those who obstructed the financial system, the bankers on Wall Street, left the scene with millions of dollars worth of bonuses and all that, until now at least, without the FBI ever cornering any of them, not even to give the American people a symbolic satisfaction.

The new President would feel the uneasiness of his fellow citizens (“At the pace things are going right now you’re going to have to ask whether you’re better off than you were four weeks ago!” asked Obama at a rally). By promising the “redistribution” of the nation’s wealth and with all the derogatory tagging applied to him by his republican rival, Obama won the elections.

That happened not because Americans became socialists, but because they still believe they can get rich on their own, provided they are let to do so. Apart from having a nationally financed health insurance system (an idea more and more attractive for the people there), as they do in Canada and EU state members, Americans want very little from the state. But what they undoubtedly want is the belief Obama promised, “yes, we can”.

Though it may be hard for Europeans to understand or even for the republican electors who received Obama’s victory with whispers such as “watch your wallets”, including most Americans who expect Obama to raise taxes, he was still the chosen one. Maybe the Americans are not so afraid of higher taxes, but of taxes with no gain. In this context, America needs more hundreds of billions for maintaining the infrastructure, more than the 50 Obama reserved for “an infrastructure reinvestment bank”. After the 700 billion dollars put aside for the rescue of the financial system, the United States’ real economy is also in urgent need of a “salvation plan”.

The Bush administration spent hundreds of billions on wars in Afghanistan and Irak. However, even though it managed to “get its hands on” the Iraqi petrol, the gas price continued to rise in America. The money spent on “exporting democracy into the world” (whether through bombs or propaganda) would have been just a small part of the entire cost, but definitely a necessary part for fixing the 182.726 unsafe bridges in America (31.4% of the total).

The speed and weight restrictions imposed to American trucks are one more loss for the American contractors, to which are added the price of gas, high cost on credits, Chinese competition etc. All this adds up as if to make it even harder to pay the bills, and any cut on them would give the impression that “yes, we can”, the American dream is at least on the operating table of a good surgeon – Barack Obama. But before giving America back its fame and before taking action for saving global economy, the new president should begin by stimulating the internal consumption, because, in the end, there is something else that depends on the American’s consumption (that “ignorant” and “arrogant” always mocked by the other nations of the world): the life of EU industry (USA’s largest commercial partner, by the way) and also tens of millions of extremely underpaid (paid, nonetheless) Chinese workers.