The American Nightmare

or: At What Price Prosperity?

I apologize right from the start for the content of this rant. I realize that my harping on the economic status of the country is getting old by now. Frankly, I wish I had something else to rant about, but there is nothing more salient than the economy at the moment, and that is really saying something when the leader of the free world is going to be decided in less than two months.

I have been listening to NPR a lot lately. I like their coverage of the economic crisis. They have intelligent and qualified guests on who talk about the topics of interest of the day. Today, they had a panel on the planned Federal bail-out of these large investment banks that is going to cost tax payers trillions of dollars. It was interesting stuff, and caused me to panic just a little. But mostly is caused me to think about something that never ceases to fascinate me about the American People.

We have this style of life that is the envy of the world. At least that is what we tell ourselves. We have this promise, called the American Dream, that anyone who has a little creativity and a lot of dedication can really make something for themselves. We are a nation of home-owners, avidly in love with suburbia. We are consumers of products from dairy to SUVs and everything in between. We have a distinct culture of comfort and ease, as attested by our drive-through everything and our willingness to sacrifice taste and quality for speed and convenience (see: microwaveble pizza).

We have happilly embraced this lifestyle, and are often proud of it. We call ourselves innovative, imagine ourselves to be the people who have it all figured out. This is what fascinates me: if we have it all figured out, how come no one is copying us? Sure, they watch our movies and listen to our music, but the rest of the world is not restructuring its social systems to be more like ours. People are buying American soft drinks, but they are not buying the American Lifestyle.

I think that is because we are not nearly as great as we think we are. Sometimes we are downright pathetic. In our eagerness to have more and more stuff, we place enormous debt burdens upon ourselves, so that we can barely enjoy our lives. How is that superior to the European countries, where the only debts that are common are car payments and rent? They take lavish, four week long vacations to exotic places, and can afford to because they do not, like many Americans, feel the need to buy a lawnmower/tractor/espresso machine on credit. Americans can barely afford to travel to Grandma's for Thanksgiving because we tend to live inches away from complete financial ruin, in the pursuit of having more stuff, bigger houses, nicer cars.

The truth is, we are miserable. We do not have even close to the highest standard of living in the world, and no one wants to be like us. Sure America is a great place to live, but only people in third-world countries see moving to America as a step up. People living in Europe see a move to America as a lateral move, with some advantages but also plenty of losses. I have seen this first hand.

We are not the land of milk and honey. The American dream often rots on the vine, and very many Americans never reach the kind of personal prosperity and happiness as is common in much less powerful European nations. That is not to say that I am disatisfied. I am happy here. I have just also had the chance to see that I would be just as happy in many other places, and that my happiness is not due to American society.

We pay a very high price in terms of human cost for our style of living. Too high a price. In our need for a McMansion and a Family Fortress SUV, we burden ourselves with more debt than we can pay. We allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking we can afford a home that is ridiculously beyond our means, simply because we can afford the payments for the next three years until the rate changes. These things are inherently unhealthy, unsatisfying, and unsafe. Those are hardly the makings of a dream.