Surviving The American Dream

by Jorge C.

Seven years I have been living here in this country. When I first arrived the economy was not so bad; I never could have imagined that the US economy could collapse like this. I remember gas prices being as low as $1.50 per gallon. Those were good times!

The first time I went back to Peru after living here for two years, most of my high school classmates would ask me:

"Could you invite me to the US so I can live there too?"

It was everybody's dream to come to America and live "The American Dream." My boss recently told me:

"Were you here during Clinton's administration?" I said

"No, why?"

"During the time he was president there were so many jobs that the government would invite people from other countries to come and work in the US; there were more jobs than people for them."


Everything changed after September 11, 2001. When this country went to war, the economy started to go down the hill. The government is spending approximately $ 903.7 billion dollars to date on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Most people thought that because we were at war with an oil rich country, oil prices will get cheaper but instead they skyrocketed.


The first job I got was a newspaper delivery carrier for the San Francisco Chronicle. People who worked there as carriers had three, even four paper routes which amounted to more or less six hundred papers, They earned an approximate of four thousand dollars per month. They showed up to the warehouse as early as 1:00 AM knowing that all they have to do is pick up their papers, fold them, load them in their cars and go deliver them. I was in the same situation; I could buy stuff my parents could not get me when I was a kid and I always wanted, a PlayStation, a Nike brand pair of shoes, a portable CD player and most importantly my first computer. I realized then "this was why everybody else wanted to come here."By the end of 2008, slowly but surely, everything started to change for the worse; until suddenly not long after that newspaper subscribers started canceling their subscription; some faithful to the San Francisco Chronicle only changed the frequency of the paper, instead of getting it everyday they only got it Wednesday through Sunday, Friday through Sunday or Sunday only.

On Tuesday June 9, 2009, Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", interviewed president of Euro Pacific Capital, Inc, and author of Crash Proof, How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, Peter D Schiff. Schiff started predicting this recession by the end of 2006; He said back then that: "The fundamentals of the economy were not sound", that "The US economy was on the verge of a massive recession". According to Schiff this recession was caused by the enormous number of loans and high amount of credit given to the people that had no way of paying them back; also that we are a consumer country: "We have too much consumption and borrowing and not enough production and savings...and when you have the economy at 70% consumption you can't address those imbalances without a recession". to what Arthur Laffer from Laffer Investments responded that he did not believe any of this whatsoever and added; "...wealth has risen dramatically, the United States economy has never been in better shape, there is no tax increase in the next couple of years...I think Peter is totally off base...". Wrong! Peter Schiff predicted exactly what we are living today, the news reporters laughed at him in disbelief, look at us now.

The other day I saw how this Chrysler dealer owners that had been in the business for over thirty years were expecting a letter that was to be delivered by FedEx with the company's executive decision of whether or not they were going to stay in business; they did not. It was very sad watching fathers and children hugging and crying after reading that the job they had and loved for most of their lives, the job that was passed from father to son was no more.



I applied for a credit Juniper credit card with iTunes rewards last week. If it was three years ago, I would have gotten between four to six thousand dollars. Even with my credit in very good condition today, I only got five hundred dollars. I still am able to afford paying my rent, cellphone, clothes, laundry, and especially gas. I used to go driving without a destination, that is how I got to know the bay area fairly well. Now I cannot go places as often as before. Everything is changing; the rent went up, gas prices went up and thousands of people are losing their jobs everyday not only here in the United States but in the whole world. Every time I watch the news I get discouraged because this crisis seems to have no soon solution.


In Crash Proof (2006), Schiff says: "Our days as the dominant economic power are numbered. The dollar is going to collapse, and Americans are going to experience stagflation on an unprecedented scale in the form of recession and hyperinflation. Those of you who act smartly and quickly by taking measures I outline later in this book not only will avoid loss of wealth but also will have positioned yourselves to prosper while your neighbors suffer a painful period of reconstruction and reform" (6). People losing their homes and jobs. It seems that we are not longer living the American Dream but trying to survive this nightmare.