Last night Shane and I were having a rousing economic discussion.
He was telling me that the average salary today is $1000 less than it was in the 1980's.
Pathetic.
Olivia wanted to know why this was. So he explained a little bit about people spending money they don't have and how this caused problems for everyone, even the people that didn't do that. Now we all get to pay for everyone else's mistakes and there isn't any money now.
Then he said, "The US is in so much trouble and we have had to borrow tons and tons of money from China."
Immediately Olivia said, "Well that's embarrassing."
And she's right. It is embarrassing.
How can an 8 year old understand this so well and yet most of the adults in our country can not?
It reminded me of my favorite SNL clip ever:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/saturday-night-live-dont-buy-stuff
First we have to figure this out.
Then we'd better teach our kids.
And then maybe, just maybe, this country of ours might stand a chance.
1 comment:
So is maybe part of the reason the average salary is lower in the US than it was in the 80's because uneducated workers without college degrees have lost their high-paying manufacturing jobs overseas so that brings down the whole national average salary? I'm not sure I agree that salaries are lower because of debt (or at least personal debt). Although I do agree that there is debt problem, I think the bigger issue is that there is an education problem with people not having access to quality K-12 education that can get them into good colleges.
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