We just bought a new car. Our meager attempt to prime the economic pump. I\u2019d list off all the things this vehicle is capable of doing, from self-activating braking system to rear view camera, but it would be easier to list what it doesn\u2019t do. You can\u2019t crank down the windows. And without a computer, good luck diagnosing anything past a burned out light bulb. It doesn\u2019t fly — at least I haven\u2019t found the button that switches into Aero Mode — but essentially it\u2019s a Jetson ride, mostly computer driven, sensor controlled and definitely futuristic.<\/p>\n
And yeah, it cost what my first house cost. $24,000. That house was a used ghetto hacienda, built about 50 years before I won it bidding in a sealed auction offered by HUD. Course back then I was buying cars for 2 or 3 hundred bucks and yeah, the windows cranked up and down, although some didn\u2019t work at all. Maybe this a story about inflation or maybe upward mobility or even, I hate to believe it, conspicuous consumption, I\u2019m not sure. But it definitely is one about the American Dream of my days. A house, a car, a family with 2.3 kids. A job, a career, a one wage-earner family. <\/p>\n
Mostly gone now, replaced by two wage-earners who make less than Ward Cleaver. The Beaver is hooked on Game Boy, Wally\u2019s a heroine addict and June has become the primary breadwinner now that Ward has been laid off. They\u2019re mortgaged to the hilt, retirement is postponed indefinitely now. I suspect they voted for Trump first go-round, figuring what did they have to lose?<\/p>\n
Second go-round, I\u2019m betting they did again. They still got plenty to lose. Maybe the American Dream was diminished before but now it seems like it\u2019s on life support. <\/p>\n
My new car has self-activating brakes when I\u2019m headed into peril. America apparently doesn\u2019t. Maybe too many of us are like this old fool, watching the rear view and not the detour ahead. I suspect when we get where we\u2019re going, the levy\u2019s gonna be dry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We just bought a new car. Our meager attempt to prime the economic pump. I\u2019d list off all the things this vehicle is capable of doing, from self-activating braking system to rear view camera, but it would be easier to list what it doesn\u2019t do. You can\u2019t crank down the windows. And without a computer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[7565,7566,7104],"class_list":["post-19689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-affordability","tag-american-dream","tag-inflation"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19690,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19689\/revisions\/19690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}