Americans Are “Financially Oppressed”

It would seem that ordinary Americans are choosing to believe their eyes and discount the prevarications teasing their ears.

Let’s move on…

I’ve been saying for a long while now that the US economy is posing as a brute when it’s really riddled with weakness. We’re seeing the proof of that emerge now (as I regularly note, predictions take time to play out).

Truthfully, I care not about which administration is in power.

I care about politicians telling us something that is at least quasi truth-adjacent instead of just flat out gaslighting Americans, particularly when the truth is so apparent that ordinary people are tweeting about it.

I trust my eyes because it’s increasingly hard to trust your ears with anyone in DC. And I don’t just mean Trump and his circus freaks. I mean pretty much every clown that has darkened the halls of the White House and Capitol Hill over the course of this century so far.

Few, if any have done much to truly better the average American’s lot in life.

I could run through all kinds of stats that would do nothing more than suddenly remind you that you need to go run and buy some goldfish food: the middle class is shrinking while the super-rich and the super-poor are expanding; aggregate middle-class income is down five percentage points this century so far, while the wealthy have seen their share rise; real household income is up just 0.4% per year on average since 2000, well under the pace of inflation.

And then there’s purchasing power. A dollar today only affords about $0.55 worth of goods from the year 2000.

Again, I could keep on keeping on with all kinds of depressing numbers about consumer debt and cost of living vs. wage growth, etc. etc. etc.

But we might as well just jump to the point: This won’t continue.

Every society under pressure reaches a breaking point. History is full of examples of that. The French Revolution, sparked by social and financial inequality amid a political monarchy. The Mexican Revolution, pretty much the same recipe, though replace monarchy with dictatorship. In the case of the Russian Revolution, war-induced shortages, social hardships and political autocracy.

Cuban Revolution. Haitian Revolution, Iranian Revolution, Tunisian Revolution, the revolutions of 1989 that fundamentally changed European borders and killed off communism…

And, of course, our very own American Revolution in which a very aggrieved people rebelled about financial oppression, political voicelessness, and social angst… which seems very much in tune with what’s happening in America today.

Americans are financially oppressed. All those statistics announce as much.

Americans on the whole are politically voiceless. Red and Blue scream so loud about such stupid and pointless matters that the majority of the country is just a burp in a windstorm of bloviating bloviators.

Americans are torn by social angst on both sides of the political spectrum, and increasingly Red wants nothing to do with Blue, and Blue is hoping Red rebuilds Dixie and cleaves off from the rest of the country.

And why?

Because we live in a post-truth America.

Nothing is true anymore. And no one will believe the other side, regardless of who’s right and what the facts show.

I cannot begin to count the stupendous lies I see on Twitter/X that pass for god’s honest truth. Propaganda, really. Yet too many people believe the lies, and when you counter those lies with provable facts, then the lies just deepen.

The animosity deepens.

The distrust deepens.

It’s no way to build a society.

We will, however, tear our current society apart…

Empires never last. Ever.

They die from the unbearable lightness of their own lies.

“The economy is the best in the world.”

“No one can live without our currency.”

“The numbers of fake news.”

“We have the strongest job market in history.”

“Every other country wants to be us.”

It all rings plausible to the ears.

But when the eyes take a look at the evidence, that’s when the rest of the body says, “Screw it—I’m outta here.”

All I’m saying is prepare yourself for the “I’m outta here” phase. That’s going to destroy many folks’ financial lives… while enriching others who did in fact prepare.