American Dream
The concept of the "American Dream" has brought people to and provided hope for people in this country since its founding. However, there are those today who argue that the American Dream is in trouble, does not exist anymore, that there is no such thing as a "self made man", or, that government needs to provide special opportunities so that those of lesser circumstances can rise in this country. This is all complete B___ S___! Two quick examples: 1. In the year 2000, Dr. Ben Chavis took over The American Indian Public Charter School (AIPCS), a failed middle school, in Oakland, California. He not only turned it around, but brought it to the top in under 10 years! Not bad for Chavis, an American Indian raised in a sharecropper's shack with no electricity in North Carolina. You can read about his story, Crazy Like a Fox, here. 2. Arthur Burns, former Fed Chairman under Richard Nixon, was an immigrant from Galicia, the son of a housepainter who had risen to become the foremost expert on US economic cycles and chief economist to Dwight Eisenhower…. Bloomberg BusinessWeek August 8, 2011. There are millions of stories like these. I will guarantee that you have them in your family. People are still flooding into this country legally and otherwise to escape other parts of the world where this type of individual freedom to improve the circumstances of their birth still exists. The only thing stopping people today from realizing the American Dream is having a dream, having the desire (hard work and perseverance) to achieve that dream, and obstacles inserted by government over the last 40 years that reduces motivation. Those who believe the American Dream no longer exists are right, because their pessimism won't let them have the dream or invest the work necessary to achieve the dream. And, their misguided belief that you can legislate opportunity to replace motivation. Our challenge today is not to let those people continue to ruin the positive mindset of the people or continue to establish limits to freedom which provide the foundation for the American Dream.

Investing in the American Dream

5/12/15
from The Gray Area:

If you ever hear anyone say the American Dream is dead, have them read the story below. "anyone who studied hard and worked hard could be successful" in America. This is a quote from a woman from Japan who brought her family here in 1957.

Whether you make it yourself or set the groundwork for future generations of your family, this is the formula for success in a country with opportunity for all - who will apply themselves.

If our government will stop creating a welfare state in this country, the American Dream will continue to be alive and well into the future.

More From Maudlin Economics, By Tony Sagami:

Investing in the American Dream

My mother and I journeyed to the United States from Japan in 1957. Our long, two-month trip on a slow naval transport ship must have been frightening to my then 20-year-old mother. But she was eager to start a new life in America… a place where anyone who studied hard and worked hard could be successful. I was less than two years old when my parents divorced in 1957. My 20-year-old Japanese mother suddenly found herself living in a strange country with no family, friends, money, food or place to live. Yet instead of returning to Japan where her family and friends were, she scratched, rummaged and scavenged enough to make a new life for us in the US. Why? My mother knew that a half-Japanese, half-American child had limited opportunities in Japan. It wasn’t like it is today; the wounds from World War II were too fresh. I would have never gone to a top university or landed a top job. Even though my mother barely spoke English and seldom had more than two nickels to rub together, she fiercely held to the idea of the American dream. “In America, anybody can get rich if they work hard,” she told me. And she was determined to have me prove her right. Putting the “Earn" in “Learn" My mother ordered me to sit in the front row directly in front of the teacher’s desk. She gave me almost daily lectures on the importance of education and punished me severely if I brought home anything less than an A. My mother was a big believer in corporal punishment, and I got the spankings of my life for anything less than straight A's. Those lectures and demands for academic excellence from my mother paid off for my siblings, my children and me. ...



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