Ziggy by Tom Wilson & Tom II for August 29, 2014

When I graduated from high school in 1962, my husband and I owned a three bedroom two bath house and two cars within two years. Most of the men who graduated with my class had similar paying jobs right out of high school. I didn’t work, didn’t need to. Most women didn’t, and those that did actually chose to work.Today, it’s not a choice for most families, and when those families break up, everyone lives in poverty. When I did decide to go back to college, I paid $79 tuition for 15-18 hours of credit at SIU Edwardsville and we paid a $20 fee to rent whichever books we needed. Everyone could go to college, paying for it with a part time job.Since then American productivity and GNP have skyrocketed. But, Middle Class people don’t have anywhere near the advantages we did. All the money is going to the top 1-5% of earners. And, with the cost of college, it’s darn near impossible to get a start, you already owe the cost of a house before you graduate college.If the American worker is the most productive in the world, and all the stats say they are, the prospects for the young people of today should be better than they were for us. Instead, we produce the highest quality goods in the world—and can’t afford to buy them.