re: "The biggest problem with most Americans today is not that the only earn $40,000. It is that they spend $45,000."
I disagree. There are many big problems with most Americans today. They are a very screwed up people, and the BIGGEST problem they've got . . . is a matter of perspective.
It could be that the biggest problem is a government, which teaches them that debt is more than just okay, it is actually GOOD. (I tried to hold this discussion on RB ROUND ten years ago. At the time, I was stood alone. Everyone else was neutral, silent, or in the "Debt can be a good thing!" camp.) Government teaches us that debt is the road to the good life... to prosperity... to living beyond our actual means. And if we can't repay what we owe, our debt will be forgiven - either through a blanket foregiveness proclamation by Santa Obama, through bankruptcy, through bankers who us walk away from their mortgages, or myriad other means.
So, government might be the biggest problem.
But how can the problem reside there when it's the people who elect the government?
And can the blame really lie with the people, when they were reared in a public school system which brainwashed them from they time that they could talk to think the Progressive way?
So, maybe THAT'S the biggest problem - the public school system!
But then, none of this would have happened at all, if the country had stuck to its Constitution - which very clearly articulated the things that Federal Government was to muck around in and the others that were to be left to the states. (Administration of public schools clearly falls to the STATES.) So, where does the problem for THAT lie?
With the courts.
So, maybe THEY are the biggest problem. If they hadn't begun ignoring and interpreting the Constitution to make it lean whatever direction their personal politics led them to desire, we wouldn't be in this mess at all!
And, perhaps, the Constitution itself is then to blame - for instituting a series of checks and balances that, it is now clear, was wholly inadequate. If the Constitution had put a few additional checks into place to ensure that there would always be a healthy fear of god in the judges who legislate, the congressmen who vote against their own state sovreignty, the presidents who would be king, and the people who do not take up arms against an overarching, irresponsible government, we would be in far better shape today.
So, maybe, THAT is the biggest problem. We need to start anew.