If you want to accept the blame for all the ills within the US including the economy by all means be my guest. But I’m not going to join you. I have been the unwilling participant in a great many things created by policy AND law that I have no interest in being a participant in. The options for opting out aren’t really desirable to most people as it would involve leaving family and moving onto an ashram, kibbutz, or commune somewhere. We have all been dragged into consuming at levels that boggle the mind and then made to participate in order to be a part of mainstream society whether we like it or not. For example If you move to a place with better schools than you will find your children are expected to have cell phones if they participate in sport teams…and you may become totally responsible for their after school activities if your school district deems it too much money to have after school busing. This means you don’t get to work that extra job AND you have to invest in cell phones to boot. And then this better education makes your kids more likely to want to go on to college….which means if you can’t pay the full tuition out of pocket and your kid is a solid B student you are going to have a whopping big tuition bill for the difference their school loans won’t cover…and that’s because B’s won’t get them any scholarships unless you belong to a minority. And so then you take out Parent loans to cover the difference…a new bill….try that yearly with three kids in college….and then your job starts saying they aren’t going to contribute at the same level towards benefits…and so you have more to pay for medical, dental, eye care and prescriptions…..and you aren’t getting any cost of living increase this year either…..and those small cars now cost what a small home used to go for….and a small homes costs what a McMansion used to go for. And you can’t even build an efficient small home in some places because it doesn’t meet the zoning…..and so on and so forth. My list goes on and on and on. And all the while I am watching the money trail. I know exactly who has got money in the bank and how that is happening. I blame a two party system that disenfranchises anyone that is middle class and below….the bulk of society. You get fed up with the fall out of the previous congress and the new guys get bogged down cleaning up the mess and you don’t like how that looks and so you throw the bums out for people from the old guys groups and so it goes back and forth…back and forth…..just the same crap with a flip of the coin….and no one says…hold on a moment….you can’t work with just two options and get anywhere….there needs to be a reduction in monies funding two parties and we need to shake up this system and create viable 3rd, 4th, and 5th parties with really savvy people put up to run for office. And we need to become really aware of how much marketing spin influences us. We need to get real on how often women and men choose the tall good looking guy because it’s an unconscious bias we have. We need to get REAL. I will now relinguish the pulpit to someone else.