I think even if you downgrade the "American Dream" from its popular image ("If you work hard, you can have a family and a little house and property in a nice area. If you're also smart and educated and have a little luck, you can even be wealthy.") to a more realistic modern version ("If you work hard, are smart and educated, and have a little luck, you can have a family and a little house and property in a nice area."), it's still obviously dead. Not in the sense that nobody achieves it, but in the sense that the requirements I've described are no longer a near-guarantee of the outcome I've described.
I think it requires a certain amount of willful ignorance to not recognize this.
This is exacerbated by the trend of businesses not sharing the burden of inflation with their employees, facilitated in part by imported/outsourced cultures lowering the bar described above, since they come from places with much lower expectations.
I think it requires a certain amount of willful ignorance to not recognize this.
This is exacerbated by the trend of businesses not sharing the burden of inflation with their employees, facilitated in part by imported/outsourced cultures lowering the bar described above, since they come from places with much lower expectations.