No, of course not. The people did what was expected of them. They cast their vote thinking that their vote mattered, thinking they could change the system if a solid majority supported it. But they were hoodwinked, right? Because that's not the way the system really works. In fact, the system doesn't really work at all. Power is just handed from one group of scheming elites to the next behind the laughable, public relations charade we call political campaigns. The whole process is designed to pull the wool over people's eyes, and to avoid the possibility of any real change. Isn't that how it works?
So now we're stuck with candidate Tweedledee and everything keeps getting worse. Unemployment is deliberately kept high so big business has a permanently large pool of desperate workers it can hire for a pittance. All the profits from productivity-gains are carved up by moneybags CEOs or divvied up among shareholders instead of going to working people. And the banks are given money at zero rates so they can roll over their gargantuan pile of toxic loans at no cost to themselves or increase the leverage on their illicit hedging operations which they keep off their balance sheets and away from the prying eyes of government regulators. The entire system is rigged from top to bottom to make sure that no one who isn't part of the inner circle is ever able to lift himself above his present, clock-punching, mind-numbing, 9 to 5 drudgery.
And now things are suddenly getting worse. And they're getting worse because the fatcats who run the system think that working people have had it too easy for too long and they want to tighten things up. They want to trim the deficits, dismantle vital social programs, and slash the unemployment rolls. As one Paul Ryan opined, "We don't want the safetynet to become a hammock." Indeed. Workers, you see, have had it too cushy up to now, so Obama's going to change all that.
The American people know what's going on. They're not as dumb as the jowly, stuffed-shirt pundits on CNBC and Bloomberg think. They can see beyond the lies and political bloviating. They know their goose is cooked. That's why they're so depressed, because they feel powerless. Pessimistic, frustrated and powerless. And for good reason. Take a look at this from Farai Chideya at Huffington Post:
"According to the Pew Research Center, in the first two years following the Great Recession, 93 percent of Americans lost net worth. Only 7 percent got wealthier. Forty-three percent of those sampled in a nationally-weighted survey I recently commissioned believe this is a permanent trend...
"I ran the 2,500-respondent query as part of an ongoing book project charting how America's workers are faring, and (found) that nearly 35% of respondents said they had spent retirement or personal savings to supplement their wages. Twenty percent relied only on personal savings; four percent on retirement savings, like an early withdrawal from an IRA or 401k, and eleven percent spent both.
"Even more arresting: 21 percent of those I surveyed agreed with the statement 'In 2013, I borrowed money from friends or family specifically in order to pay household, medical or credit card bills.'" ("Working on Empty: America's Workers Are Spending Down Savings to Survive," Huffington Post)
You've heard it all before. People are draining their savings just to make ends meet day to day. And what choice do they have? It's not like they can just up-and-quit and get a better job down the street. There are no jobs! And the few jobs that are available, don't pay a living wage. So they're stuck. Everybody's stuck. And you wonder why people are so glum about the future? It's because America has changed, and not for the better.
Did you know that nearly 80 percent of the people who were questioned in a recent LearnVest and Chase Blueprint survey said the American dream involved owning a home?
Unfortunately, a mere 43 percent of those respondents said they think "achieving the American dream in this economy is possible."
43 percent! Less than half the people believe the ideological gobbledygook we've been spoon-fed from Day 1. That's got to mean something, right? It means more people are giving up, they're throwing in the towel. Why? Because hard work, a good education and playing by the rules just doesn't cut it anymore. The opportunities are gone, vanished, kaput. That's what 30 years of outsourcing, offshoring and corporate-friendly policy does for a country. It turns it into a two-tiered system where all the gravy flows to the top and everyone else is left with table scraps. That's why according to Gallup "67% of the people are Dissatisfied With Income, Wealth Distribution." Check it out:
"Two out of three Americans are dissatisfied with the way income and wealth are currently distributed in the U.S. ... Americans are much less optimistic about economic opportunity now than before the recession and financial crisis of 2008 unfolded. Prior to that, at least two in three Americans were satisfied, including a high of 77% in 2002."
And here's more from another Gallup survey:
"Americans' Satisfaction With Economy Sours Most Since 2001--Public more satisfied on most other issues today than 13 years ago," Gallup
"Americans ... are significantly less satisfied with the economy and the role the U.S. plays in world affairs. The 40-percentage-point drop in Americans' satisfaction with the economy, along with a 21-point drop in the world affairs issue.
"The U.S. has seen numerous changes since early 2001, but...The biggest change in satisfaction has been with the state of the economy -- now much lower than it was then, at the end of the dot-com boom and before the major recession of 2008-2009."
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