From MSNBC’s First Read, Thursday, August 17th. “As we’ve written before, in making their case that the US economy is strong, Bush and GOP officials tend to focus on the nation’s unemployment rate. “Five-point-five million jobs created since 2003” is the Administration economic rallying cry, and the Bush tax cuts are their stated reason for low unemployment. The trouble is, as we also have written before, jobs are no longer the pressing economic concern they were in the 1990s. Many Americans are now using other standards to measure their own circumstances and how the overall economy is performing, including wages relative to inflation, the cost of gas and health care, and home values. In the most recent NBC/Journal poll from late July, 40% ranked gas prices as the most important economic issue facing the country; unemployment rated near the bottom with 5%. Over the next two days, listen for what Bush might say to address the list of traditional economic “truths” which, to many Americans, no longer seem quite so true: that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead; that health insurance will keep you from going bankrupt over medical costs; that owning a home is a means to financial security; that real estate and stock investments always increase in value; that Social Security will always be there; that your company retirement fund is safe; and, that your children will face a brighter future than you. Until the Administration focuses on these concerns, it seems unlikely that Americans are going to see eye to eye with them on a strong US economy.” Myth Number One – If you work hard, play by the rules, you will get ahead. Not true. Plenty of people in this country work very hard. Sometimes at more than one place of employment. Yet, they don’t own their own home. They drive cars that are more than a decade old. Their children won’t go to college because they cannot afford to save the money that will not pay for it all anyway. I have a college education and my raise for the coming school year when broken down will net me about $60 a month. Meanwhile the co-pays for my health insurance went up as did the co-pay for prescription drugs. My asthma medicine alone can eat up my entire raise for the year. Working hard is just that. Working. Hard. So that someone else can live a better life than you do. Myth Number Two – Health Insurance will keep you from going bankrupt if you become seriously ill. When my husband went into the hospital last October with pneumonia and pulmonary embolisms, his three day stay in ICU amounted to over $28, 000. This did not include the ambulance ride to the hospital or from the hospital to the hospice. It did not include the fees for the emergency room, the ER doctors, the attendings in ICU, the neurologist who consulted or the pulmonary specialist. It did not include co-pays. It was just three days. I am not bankrupt only because my husband had qualified for Medicaid a year earlier and it picked up what my own insurance did not. I was lucky. Most people are not. Myth Number Three – Real Estate and stock values will increase in value. Tell that to the former employees of Enron or WorldCom or MCI or anyone who has ever worked for or invested in a company that has gone belly up. Remember the Dot.Com’s in the ’90’s? Remember the S&L’s in the ’80’s? Stocks go up and down. Smart people (and really lucky ones) know how to read the market signs. To get in and get out with their money. It’s still gambling. Real estate? The housing bubble was just that it is appearing. A bubble. And it is showing signs of losing air, if not actually bursting, in most states. Stocks are just paper. Houses you can actually live in unless you did a no money down 15 year ARM at 3.3% and decided that a bargain like that could buy you more house than someone of your income level could actually look forward to. Now you might be in trouble. Myth Number Four – Social Security will always be there. Hate to be the one to break it to you but the elder boomers will likely be the last generation of Americans to really enjoy their retirement. The rest of us are going to work until we physically can’t anymore. People born after 1960 will not be able to collect their full benefits until they are 67. And with the price of health insurance most people can’t afford to leave jobs that provide it (and fewer and fewer do) until they can receive Medicare which currently is not available to retirees until they are at least 62. Also, as this century wears on their will be more retirees and fewer working adults to tax to support them. And those who will be taxed are working at lower and lower paying service industry jobs. The lower the pay, the less to tax. There might be some SS there, but no one will be able to live off it. Myth Number Five – Your Company’s Retirement Plan is Safe. No, it’s not. And neither is your 401K. Anything that depends on investment to make money can be lost as easily as money in Vegas. Employers go out of business. They have more and more leeway, thanks to the Federal Government, to change the terms of their retirement plans without warning or dump them altogether. Myth Number Six – Your Children’s Future will be Brighter Than Yours was. Which is a comforting thought, considering how average working adult’s future ain’t all that rosy. But, it’s not true. Forget money. Their is a looming oil crisis come the middle of this century and global warming issues as well. And that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. Terrorism. Pandemics. Short-shifted educations systems. The widening gap between rich and poor and a middle-class that is vanishing faster than the polar ice-cap, all combine to make the future a scary place for our progeny. And if this weren’t enough there is growing evidence that the obesity epidemic in this country will in all likelihood shorten the life-span of our children because of the chronic and life-threatening health hazards that just being overweight, not even obese, cause. Things like diabetes, heart disease and even some types of cancer can all be attributed to our nations growing disregard for the fat rolling round the waistbands of our youths.