Our luv affair with 'Crapitalism'

   Now, my dad is likely to start spinning in his grave as I enter this collection of thoughts, but having lived and worked for decades in the USA it's getting harder and harder to recognize what made US great.
   'Great' as in a beacon for the rest of the world (as well as ourselves) that we have the best of everything here and, if you work hard, pay your taxes, keep your nose clean, a middle class person can reap the rewards of a job well done.
   Well, that's about all you get these days, as between the ages of 44 and 54 you're shown the door  — "Thanks, bud, for a job well done but you're getting too expensive to keep. .... What's that? Pension? Nah, I don't think so, I think we've already spent that ... Huh? Benefits? You mean like insurance? No, no, sorry ... we can't help you there either."
   Can we even comprehend how many breadwinners have heard this spiel in the past 15 years as they are separated from their careers? Then, after the humiliating unemployment benefits run out, the mid-life soul is simply counted no more amid the jobless ranks. Poof.
   Since the 1980s, Corporate America, with a wink and a nod from the federal government, shipped all of our manufacturing jobs out of the country and by doing so generated a gradual ripple effect through every strata of American employment. If you're fortunate enough to have a job you keep your mouth shut and your head down, hoping the success of your company isn't so attractive that some other company becomes your new boss and a total stranger tells you that you aren't needed anymore.
   And now, of course, we are borrowing money from the same countries that took our jobs.
   What are we going to do? And by 'we' I mean the shrinking middle class that's reached middle age.
   One of the growing trends in the housing market is the amount of people paying cash to buy a home because banks have tightened lending to a point that even if you have good credit you can't get a loan: the system is broken.
   Never have I witnessed such craven examples of the rich getting richer and the working man getting poorer and working longer for less money. 
   Although I am not a member of [nor could I ever envision myself as a member of] the Tea Party, there is a reason why they exist and why they control the rudder of the Republican Party: they feel cheated by the system and they don't want to pay for it anymore.
   Myself, I don't feel cheated; frustrated, but not cheated. The employment picture for the middle class has been rocky since the 80s. The new millennium and the suffocation of unions has allowed corporations to run with scissors.
   The entrepreneur is getting clobbered. Hell, delivery costs alone are vaporizing profit margins of the 'little engine that (once) could.' And if your enterprise is a restaurant or a grocery store, I'd be amazed if you can sleep at night, caught in the profit-killing cross hairs of gasoline and food costs.
   The shine is certainly gone; the beacon certainly dimmer.
   "What's that? Huge bonuses for the greedy morons who brought the financial system to its knees? Well, of course they must get those bonuses — we wouldn't want to lose our best and brightest from Wall Street to other countries would we?"
   Really?
   Hmmmmm.