So says Economist Joseph Stiglitz in this op-ed.
Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity.
Stiglitz goes on to talk about how higher education is simply out of reach. It's true, education was the great social leveler in the past. If one was poor after WWII, there was still a way forward through college.
Americans are coming to realize that their cherished narrative of social and economic mobility is a myth. Grand deceptions of this magnitude are hard to maintain for long — and the country has already been through a couple of decades of self-deception.
Without substantial policy changes, our self-image, and the image we project to the world, will diminish — and so will our economic standing and stability. Inequality of outcomes and inequality of opportunity reinforce each other — and contribute to economic weakness.
Equality has to be one of the biggest rhetorical lies coming out of Washington D.C. Dream on if one is not born into it, America for reality says you're going nowhere.
Comments
Everything's a lie - criminals and liars rule this country now
Courtesy of "The Thin Red Line" - because it's apt:
"Everything's a lie. Everything you hear, everything you see. So much to spew out. They just keep coming, one after another. You're in a box. A moving box. They want you dead, or in their lie... There's only one thing a man can do - find something that's his, and make an island for himself."
So keep on believing working hard, getting an education, and treating others well (the Golden Rule) will result in anything but sheer misery. Nepotism, cronyism, and crime from the top on down rule the day. But it's all disguised in "networking" and "the best and brightest" trying to protect this country against the "lazy, idiotic unemployed" and "unqualified Americans." Because with 6 official applicants per opening, networking makes sense (to the mathematically challenged) despite the obvious truth that there aren't enough jobs in America for American citizens (thanks to big business and the puppets in both parties).
And those who believe in the values of the past are crushed underfoot. During the Great Depression (Part I), were the unemployed blamed? Were newspapers and officials praising plutocrats that had lower IQs, no ethics, but had family connections that made having a brain and morals unnecessary? And yet we still see hundreds of millions of poor and unemployed globally being blamed for things that had nothing to do with them but they had to deal with as a terrible consequence? And the balls of the people laying blame (e.g., in the R camp, Gingrich that can't pay private jet and Tiffany's bills and the WH that cares more about playing golf with Tiger Woods than identifying with Joe Average that is near death because he's overqualified and long-term unemployed) only get that big because they aren't down here in the trenches, because down here in the trenches, they just wouldn't last because nobody coddles their asses.
Unbelievable. Damn, hopefully someone from overseas on a visa can write better than me, because as corrupt politicians claim, I simply can't piece this English language together, it's beyond me. Maybe I'll check the freelancing elance site and replace myself with someone that will work for $.00001 per word. Maybe then the politicians will understand the message - it will be dumbed-down for their benefit.
USA 2013 - EVERYTHING'S A LIE