What Happened To America?

For those 40 years of age and over, do you remember an America where anyone from the poorest of backgrounds with no education or work experience could get a job at a major company and work their way into middle class life? At age 43, I have watched our great country go from a land of opportunity for virtually all it's citizens who were willing to work hard to a land where even citizens with multiple college degrees and countless years of work experience are unable to find jobs. What happened in four decades to change things so drastically overnight?

For one the powers that control America kept changing the bar. What do I mean? We went from a nation where high school dropouts could get jobs at major manufacturing companies and work their way to the American Dream.  Then the rules starting changing and we were told "you need to have a high school diploma to get these jobs." The next bar change: "you need to have some college or certifications to get these jobs." The next bar change: " you need to have a college degree to get these jobs." The next bar change: "you need a graduate degree to get these jobs." How is it that the majority of Americans from WWII to the 1970's could master the tasks necessary to successfully manufacture quality products in America with no education beyond high school or previous work experience? From that time period the United States of America was #1 economically in the world with the new creation of this strong middle class . So why change the system if that system made you #1?

Today, to land the few jobs that are still available in manufacturing, you have to have all kinds of certifications and or college degrees or countless years of experience (like ten years in some areas) to try to land that same entry level job? Rarely are there opportunities to get a job and be trained. Why? To the elite running these corporations, are Americans no longer trainable? That doesn't make sense. There is no evidence of that.

Remember when you filled a job application today and were hired today? Now, the hiring process can literally drag out months. I've even heard stories of hiring processes that lasted six months and the applicant had even forgotten about applying for the job in the first place, when one day they receive an email or letter in the mail referencing the application. It only takes a few days to run background checks. So what has changed in the system?

I was watching cable news during the summer and heard a report that I never heard again stating that there were currently over two million vacant jobs at American corporations. This at a time when over fifteen million Americans are unemployed and another several million more are under-employed.

The reason for all of this is that the majority of American CEO's and politicians running these corporations and the country today have no allegiance to America. CEO's do not care whether Americans, who built their companies to begin with, now have jobs or not. They do not care if our entire country collapses. Their only allegiance is to their shareholders and the almighty dollar or in the case of politicians their allegiance is to big money they get from corporate America to get re-elected. This mindset is the only thing that can account for CEO's like Aetna's Ron Williams who last year dropped 600,000 policy holders from it's roles while he made $38,000,000 in salary. Or the US defense department outsourcing procurement to foreign countries. Or US state governments outsourcing IT and administrative jobs that contain sensitive data (like your social security numbers and tax data) to foreign countries which obviously poses security risks. Or American toy company CEO's who offshored their manufacturing only to wound up importing toys back to America that are now unsafe for our children because of dangerous toxins that can be used for foreign manufacturers just to save a buck in labor costs.

Welcome to the new America where there are mainly low wage jobs or no jobs at all.