Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(May 2005)
An ex-Brit gives his views - (without
fear or favor) - of the American Scene
The I’ve gotta have it
syndrome:
 The two wage earner upper yuppie
generation have developed over the years of prosperity
in the United States since World War Two the "I’ve
gotta have it syndrome",
where they have got to have the largest houses with all
mod cons, the latest huge bigger and better gas guzzling
sports utility vehicles, (SUV's), expensive designer
clothes, etc, even though many have huge mortgage debt
and have maxxed out a whole string of credit cards.
You
must realise that my description applies only to some
of the young two wage earner families who are currently
in good jobs earning relatively high salaries and fortunate,
or unfortunate, enough to be in the upper tax bracket,
and certainly does not apply to the lower echelon people
working two jobs and yet barely existing upon minimum
wages, these are the people who can readily attest
to the fact that it has become exceedingly difficult
for them to make ends meet.
It would appear that the
upper yuppie craving for materialistic things exceeds
no bounds - but there again, they have only seen prosperity
in their short lives and are following the "spend
now pay later" economy that developed
after World War Two. They have yet to realise that the
people of America suffered great hardships before, during,
and after the 1929 depression that did not ease up until
way after World War Two ended.
 They have yet to realise
that in general what goes up eventually comes down and
situations have been known to occur where their once,
more than adequate pay checks do not support their
debt laden purchases of materialistic things. When
their debt exceeds their salary income and house values
tumble to a point where their mortgage is higher than
the current selling price of their residence, and jobs
become scare or non-existent, as was experienced a
few years ago when the dot.com companies went belly
up, then they are in big trouble and in many cases
seek the protection of bankruptcy.
I’m
not predicting that another great depression is rapidly
approaching and is going to happen soon but I would suggest
that the buyer beware the current situation where the
Bush administration is still promoting the idea that
the American economy is strong even though the United
States has become the largest debtor nation in the world
and the National Debt gets larger every month.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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