O- Oh say can you see?

The American dream or really the American myth? We are brought up to believe that anything is achievable, we can do all things. It's this hope that leaves us complacent and willing to work harder and longer. We grow up thinking that we will do better than our parents, have more, not have to struggle with life and living life.

The truth is that the rags to riches story is a one in a million scenario.  Unless you are born into a life a privilege, the odds are completely stacked against you.

What is the dream?  To own your home, be able to comfortably pay your bills, provide all that your children need without having to struggle, feed them healthy food (not just what can be afforded) have a steady job where you are appreciated at, go on vacation once a year.  These are all things that can be done through hard work and determination.  Or can it?

How many hard working determined people have now lost their jobs their homes all they have worked for in achieving this dream? Is this just bad luck? Too often it feels like no matter how hard you try to get your family to the next level, how good your idea is, that you play cautiously, your still doomed to fail.  Your social class, your credit rating prevents you from being able to hold onto that 'dream' or even from achieving it. 

Everyday, people fall on hardships, things that they have no control over or had no hand in creating. For example a sick spouse, the housing market crashing, loosing your job, things that no amount of planing can prepare you for. Now you find yourself in a situation where you are stuck, you can't get a job, you have medical bills, and can't get a loan to pay anything off because of your credit score & house having no equity. No one person is immune to these things, but the American dreamers the ones who have attained the unattainable, they are the people who seem to be hit hardest in this time of economic distress.

Our hard earned tax dollars were used to bail out banks from their mess. Yet the same curtiousy is not being driected back to the people who worked hard to bail them out.  Really, if you use the same scale to which "WE" are deemed fit for a loan the banks themselves should have been denied the bail out they were given.  "They" being, the banks and goverment officals have made bad decisions that have cost us being, the American people dearly.  And for us making a bad decision or falling on hardship now feels like an almost forever burdon.  We do understand that the bank bail out had to be, that said, it would only seem fair to lower in some respect the qualifications to be approved for a loan. The banks Should not hold you to a standard that doesnt exist anymore!

In the end we suppose, the only thing that matters is a loving family, respect and admiration. Not what you have or didn't have. But, that doesn't mean we all wont try and all shouldn't have equal opportunities to achieve the American dream!