America: Who Stole the Dream?

America: Who Stole the Dream?, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Andrews and McMeel, 1996

Starting life as a multi part series in the Philadelphia Inquirer, this book looks at contemporary America from a neglected perspective: that of middle-class Americans who have been watching their fortunes shrink across the board over the last few years.

The authors, both Pulitzer Prize winners, give many examples of how things have gotten worse for the majority of Americans. There is a government program which allows companies and individuals to hire foreign workers, circumventing the regular immigration process, if it is certified, by the company or individual, that no properly qualified American is available to fill the job. Whether or not a diligent search for a qualified American has actually been undertaken is entirely another matter.

The US is the only country in the world to have a policy of totally free trade and open market access. For the last 20 years, America has had a nearly continuous trade deficit with all the major industrial countries (not combined, but individually) including a trade deficit in computers, supposedly America's economic savior, with China. Most federal job retraining programs, assuming one can get into them, are about at the level of a joke. The chance of getting a job in a new field at anything like one's old wage is slim at best.

For those who are experiencing firsthand the "global economy", and want the details, this is the book. Along with the other two books in this series, America: What Went Wrong? and America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (both equally recommended), this book forms a devastating chronicle of what has become an America of the rich, by the lobbyists, and for the corporations.