Dear Dirty America

In 2010 a bedraggled woman named Velma Hart stood up from the crowd and berated the cool President Obama that she was worried that the old “hotdogs and beans era” was coming back, and she was “exhausted” defending the do-nothing president. The woman didn’t want to go back to those poor economic times when workers’ wages were so stagnant, and good jobs so scarce, most families would have to subsist on wieners and beans.

My response back then was, Why are you eating hotdogs and beans? If you’ve got to get cheap, buy dried beans. You can also live far cheaper by purchasing vegetables on sale and eating them with rice.

I’ve never understood why more Americans don’t eat rice and beans. And I don’t mean pork ‘n beans. I mean kidney beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, white beans, etc. I’ve been lecturing folks on eating more fiber for years now. I’ve tried to entice my fellow citizens to drop the McDonald’s meals and the endless supply of red meat and trade them in for lentils, beans, and whole grains.

Mostly, my troubles to persuade the American public with better dietary habits gets me the middle finger.

As it turns out, most Americans might be forced to take my advice, because of economic hardship. Even wieners might be out of the equation.

Yahoo! Finance’s review of Tyler Cowen’s book Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, sends an eerie message about our economic future in America. If you aren’t comfortable consuming beans and other staple foods, I suggest you pay attention to it. But be careful, because it might put you in a bad mood.

The premise is that most of what is left of the American middle class is going to continue slipping into poverty. The few who are lucky enough or educated the right way, or who happen to have the proper personal connections, will be able to rise above a jobless economy and invest in meaningless, but profitable ventures, such as social media outfits and technology start-ups.

As America continues to plummet into poverty and despair, the masses are placated by mindless entertainment. More sports, more violent movies, more dramatic TV shows, more electronic music to soothe and distract them from the impending doom of having a real unemployment rate hovering between an estimated 14-20 percent.

Only the elite will be able to afford clean, organic food, real education, and safe and desirable places to live.

The rest of us will be stuck eating beans, according to Cowen. Beans are cheap and provide the same nutrition as fancier foods. But don’t take my word for it. Read the article. It’s an insight into where serious economists and experts think we’re headed financially.

Lucky for me, I like beans. I eat simply anyway. I’d rather mingle with the down-and-out folks on the streets. However, for the middle class families out there, the days of SUVs, suburban homes, and disposable income are screeching to a halt.

The cycle of joblessness will not end, as the article referred to above mentions. This is no longer a cycle, but a downward spiral. Jobs are scarce. They are competed for by people all over the world, as outsourcing has become commonplace. People will have to become more cutthroat and creative to make a decent living. The days of high-paying American jobs are over, except for a few skilled laborers and serendipitous entrepreneurs.

Back in 2010, as a passionate Velma Hart stood holding the microphone, President Obama offered his usual hollowed response. “Is the American Dream dead to me?” he asked aloud, to which he then answered himself, “Absolutely not.”

But for the rest of us, it may very well be.