08/07/12 Auburn, Alabama – Growing
up in the Cold War, we tended to look at Russia as a nightmare slave
society that was utterly and completely foreign to anything Americans
knew or could possibly know, absent some kind of invasion.
If I were to summarize the American propaganda message of the time it
would be this: We are free, they are not, and that’s why we are rich
and they are poor. And, man, did they look poor to our eyes. I could
never understand it: How the heck does a once-great people put up with a
government that is so obviously and apparently driving the whole
population down, year after year?
Well, welcome to 2012 America. Have a look at the extremely scary Federal Reserve report, the
Survey
of Consumer Finance. If you have the stomach for it, read it yourself.
The bean counters have put together the most broad and deep look at the
finances of the median family. It turns out that the median American
family is financially falling off a cliff, despite (or because of!) the
trillions spent trying to prevent this from happening.
The short summary:
