What do auto repairs, a hospital stay, building a house, hiring a plumber or getting a solid college education all have in common?
Well, for one, they are all relatively expensive pursuits in our wonderful country, as opposed to things we think of as relatively "cheap" for what you get: like $3.99 shirts at Walmart, the GPS for your car (Louis and Clark, eat your hearts out!), 8 gig flash drives for $4, a juicy steak, solar lights for around your driveway or using the Internet.
One of the reasons the American middle class feels they are falling further and further behind is not so much the feeling they get after walking out of their weekly visit to Walmart for manufactured items & staples, as the feeling they get when confronted with a car repair, their college tuition/book bill or when they need someone to come and fix something at their home. We won't even talk about a hospital stay. Those items are quickly becoming luxuries for most Americans.
You know why I think this is true? If you stop and think about it, what differentiates the cost of the above is who one pays to get the benefit of the item. What got me thinking about this was an amusing diary posted by Greywolfe a while back here. It seems the only people able to afford all the "good things in life" such as new homes, college for their kids, hair transplants, new homes or Corvettes are the ones pulling down Greywolfe's new minimum wage of $240 per hour (or more!). Sad to say, I am not one of them.
Most of the manufactured items we buy every day are made for us by anonymous Asian people, who are paid next to nothing, working in factories which were built by Asian construction workers for next to nothing, in countries that charge next to nothing for their tax base or environmental needs. One of the ways we have essentially gone green in America is by turning our suppliers' kids into cancer magnets. Our skies are clear and our water is beautiful, because we make nothing here anymore--hey, who can afford to pay an American factory worker anymore? Some of those guys make way, way over minimum wage. Ever wonder what those $35 Khakis would cost you if it were made exclusively in America? Check this out. You aren't a khakis kinda person? How about a pair of jeans and a t-shirt? We all spend about $160 every time we go out and buy jeans and a t-shirt, right?
Food, while mostly grown here, comes from corporate farms where very little American labor is used. And, guess who is exempt from our nation's minimum wage laws? Our beloved migrants, who must still hand pick crops like strawberries that are not machine harvest friendly. Until very recently, it seemed most of our meat also came from illegal immigrants working for less than the minimum wage. Here is an irony for you: South Americans are paid so little to pick oranges, that whole groves are going fallow here in Florida, as our "underpaid" migrants are no longer competitive with Brazilian workers. That's because they have to live and work in a country where we natives charge an arm and a leg for any services they need.
And health care? Who are we kidding? Almost 100% of our health care, right down to the pills we take, must pass through a "Made and served in America" system. Forget cheap imports! You want to bring to bring down the cost of health care? Its really very simple--have the average American health worker's pay & benefits cut down to that of the average Chinese health worker in the same occupation. Do the same for the pharm's researchers and execs while you are at it. Our insurance costs would plummet 70%, and the poor insurance companies could become very profitable again. Of course, there would be the pesky problem of the 15-20% of our population who perform such services now requiring Medicaid.....
And to top it all off, even if you're one of the few lucky ones who work for one of the last great American companies who treat their employees well, you now have to buy a hand gun for fear of your neighbor coveting your stuff that you rightfully stole earned at work. (You know, like the poor guy who took that pay cut at the factory down the street last year who now is working 2 jobs almost 80 hours a week for 1/3 the pay?)
Each day more and more American workers seem to be entering the twilight zone of the American underground economy where things like minimum wage and benefits are goals one reaches for. You know why you didn't get a raise or bonus this year? Your company's owner/manager knows the conditions "out there" are more frightening than those where you work, no matter HOW MUCH your co-pays and deductibles increase. In fact, even IF your company is profitable and its workforce productive, that might not insulate you from the coming dystopia, since now companies must maximize profits a bit more. Those few Americans still pulling down something close to what used to be called middle class wages are all in occupations that simply can't be outsourced.....yet.
So, as this Christmas season stares us in the face, I salute the dwindling number of Americans who can still afford to be Americans.
Enjoy it while you can.