" Amid the general self-congratulation, however, amid the smug speeches of the business leaders, and the triumphant clatter of ticker-tape machines, millions of Americans worked all day in mines, factories, and on patches of rented or mortgaged land. In the evening they read the newspaper or listened to the not-yet-paid-for radio and looked forward to Saturday night, when they might hold their mouths under the national faucet for a few drops of the wild revelry that everyone spoke about. For the fact was that a large section of the American population was living sparely and precariously and, through not jobless and impoverished (as many would be a decade later), were shut of the high, wild, and prosperous living that marked the upper half of the population. "
--- Howard Zinn
It really is truly amazing how much what caused the great depression and what caused the financial crisis parallel each other and if you parallel the lives of Americans during the Great Depression and the lives of young people in this country. I like many young people in America have to work two jobs in order to pay off the massive student loan debt that I acquired and find it nearly impossible to survive on my own. The only thing that gives me solace is my Saturday nights getting white girl wasted.
I feel part of the problem is ourselves. There are very few people who actually care enough to pay attention to what the people we elect to represent our best interests do. But what I think as a society we can do is to ask ourselves what can we learn form this experience and from the past and how to improve.
