Welcome to Brazil

For the second time this week, the Yankees lost a game in 10 innings, this time to the Tigers in soggy Detroit. Meanwhile, Boston swept a double header and Seattle beat Texas, so New York is 6.5 games behind the Red Sox and 3 behind Seattle for the Wild Card.

Home foreclosures are running at a record pace, but here on the Platinum Coast, real estate prices remain high. Not too far from where we live there’s a “charming” 2BD/1BA cottage listing for a mere $879,000. According to the ad, the price was recently “reduced.”

Who can afford an $879,000 home? Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief…drug dealer? The question baffles. I notice a number of homes above the million dollar mark – older tract homes that have been renovated, one such with “filtered” views of the ocean. I guess if you can see a tiny sliver of ocean through a stand of eucalyptus trees that qualifies as “filtered.” I wonder how much that sliver adds to the price. $50 grand? $100 grand?

I love the language real estate hucksters use to describe these listings: “Amazingly charming,” “elegant,” “incredible views,” and “breathtaking privacy.” I suppose that “breathtaking privacy” means you can run around the backyard naked or take a long, satisfying piss off the deck without fear that your neighbors will call the cops.

I hate to sound like a warped CD, but this country has lost its moorings. I read a report on wealth in America the other day that noted that in 1985 there were 13 billionaires in the country; today there are more than 1,000. The Bush Administration takes that news as a sign of a robust economy. The reality is different, and slowly, grudgingly, even the corporate-controlled media is beginning to notice.

For a generation now, official government tax and monetary policy has sought to shift wealth from the middle to the top. The ideological underpinning for this policy asserted that society’s investors and risk-takers deserved the spoils. This ideology also asserted that everyone would benefit from unfettered capitalism because some wealth would “trickle” down to the working masses.

Well, if you’re an average working person and feel like you’ve been taking a long golden shower, you’re not alone. Welcome to the new Gilded Age. The rich are richer than ever, the yacht building business is strong, corporate profits are high – and the rest of us are scrounging under the sofa cushions for loose change, shopping at Wal-Mart, and eating off the dollar menu at Taco Bell.

We are Brazil. Through inattention, ignorance, and gullibility, we have driven a stake through the heart of the American Dream. We swallowed the fables, lies, and bullshit fed us by the money changers. They told us that we too could sit at their bountiful table, and all the while they were conspiring to keep us out of the dining room.

I miss the American Dream. To me it never promised riches; instead it promised that my hard work would net me and my family a comfortable, decent life. There might not be plenty, but there would be enough.