Bankrupt and broke, Americans still want it all | Features | Economy | News | Financial Post

There is an advertisement beside an online article by CNBC real estate reporter Diana Olick that speaks volumes to the America of the 21st Century. We want it all, but we can’t afford it. Inches away from the headline that states most homeowners in the U.S. owe more on their house than it is actually worth is a 72-year-old man, topless, ripped with an anabolic six pack and the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger at 35. He’s selling Cenegenics, an ‘anti-aging’ treatment that costs about $1,000 a month, $4,000 to start.

Meanwhile, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows that 53% of Americans believe the debt and deficits should be cut significantly, but the same percentage agrees that taxes should not be raised on anyone. Similarly, 53% of Americans think that the influence of banks and corporations should be reined in, but that regulations on businesses should be cut back. In other words, as Henry Blodget of Business Insider said Wednesday on Yahoo! Finance’s Daily Ticker program…”Americans want everything.

”We have been told that for at least three generations. But the American “think and grow rich” mentality has run its course. Oprah Winfrey famously said in the 1980s about her stunning success in broadcast television that, “I believe you can have it all, just not all at once.” Barack Obama ran on “Yes, We Can!” In reality, maybe we can’t have it all, ever. The real world isn’t one of “yes, you can.” The real world is a world of “maybe, you can.”

via Bankrupt and broke, Americans still want it all | Features | Economy | News | Financial Post.

Strange Random Economics Quote:

“The gap in our economy is between what we have and what we think we ought to have – and that is a moral problem, not an economic one.” – Paul Heyne

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