Debt Crisis Inching Its Way Upward

I saw on TV a sad story of how corporate executives were affected by the Crash of 2008 and had to start all over again.  The main character had to give up his Porsche, his country club membership, and assume the paltry salary of $65,000 per year.  The show was remarkable because its theme had finally touched the consciousness of the Media whose job is to report what’s going on in America although the economic cracking and popping of the national superstructure has been going on for decades.

I don’t recall any similar concern when the Silent Majority endured the Crash of 1982 which was much worse not only in numbers, but in the hiring and salary handicaps that became the norm.  I remember them well: changing hiring job titles to lower salaries (coordinator), offering a 37.5 hour work week to avoid “full time” benefits, making uncompensated working hours a condition of employment, de-funding key corporate duties of health care and pensions, and finally, the most dramatic of all, the periodic culling of the work force by the tens of thousands in “lay offs” to prevent employee vesting in order to pocket their salaries.

The story and trauma of 26 million Americans remains a silent one because the chicken that was being plucked was not very glamorous and did not own a Porsche.