Prosumer American Audit

AMERICAN AUDITA Walk Down Uneasy Street

EURO RSCG WORLDWIDE

November 2011

Prosumer Reports is a series of thought leadershippublications by Euro RSCG Worldwide—part of a globalinitiative to share information and insights, including ourown proprietary research, across the Euro RSCG networkof agencies and client companies.

Euro RSCG Worldwide is a leading integrated marketingcommunications agency and was the first agency to benamed Global Agency of the Year by both Advertising Ageand Campaign in the same year. Euro RSCG is made upof 233 offices in 75 countries and provides advertising,marketing, corporate communications, and digital andsocial media solutions to clients, including Air France,BNP Paribas, Charles Schwab, Citigroup, Danone Group,Heineken USA, IBM, Kraft Foods, Lacoste, L’Oréal, Merck, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Pernod Ricard, Reckitt Benckiser, sanofi-aventis, and Volvo. Headquartered in New York, Euro RSCG Worldwide is the largest unit of Havas, a world leader in communications (Euronext ParisSA: HAV.PA).

For more information about Prosumer Reports, please visit www.prosumer-report.com or contact Naomi Troni, global chief marketing officer, at [email protected].

Follow us on Twitter @prosumer_report.

2 Prosumer Report, November 2011 American Audit 3

Table of Contents

In summer 2011, Euro RSCG Worldwide commissioned its latest global Prosumer research study, surveying more than 7,000 adults in 19 countries worldwide. “American Audit” looks at the U.S. findings, examining the cultural and social context in which Americans live, work, communicate, and consume. The sample of 500 Americans (249 men and 251 women) answered a battery of more than 120 questions, and their responses were analyzed to identify what motivates them, inspires them, scares them, and bores them. We are living in a world of overstimulation and constant communication, of occupied Wall Street and unemployed Main Street, and it is against this backdrop that we explore these trendsightings and the opportunities that sit on the horizon for brands and causes.

What a Difference a Decade Makes

The American Woman’s Well-Being Deficit

Modern Life: Worried Sick

Arab Spring, American Fall

The Great Divides

The American Dream, Deferred

A Way Out

................................................................................. 5

............................................................. 10

................................................................................................ 12

............................................................................................... 16

.................................................................................................................. 20

...................................................................................... 24

................................................................................................................................. 26

“This research shows that the relentless march of progress is leaving in its path heightened concerns about people’s health, well-being, even the structure of society. Due to new technology, a changing economy, and longer life spans, modern Americans are coping with issues that would have been unfamiliar to past generations. As marketers, we have our work cut out for us: helping consumers to manage these areas of concern and using our skills to help nudge society in a healthier direction.”

—Tom Morton, Chief Strategy Officer, Euro RSCG New York

American Audit 5

In only 10 years, public opinion on politics, the economy, and the once-infallible American Dream has experienced a seismic shift. Americans’ worries have refocused and intensified, and sociopolitical divides have grown steeper and more jagged in every domain—online, within schools and churches, and among pockets of irate protesters. War-weary and worried sick, the American people are fundamentally different now compared with a decade ago.

Yet, among other revelations gleaned from Euro RSCG Worldwide’s new Prosumer research, we found that despite a decade of hard knocks, most Americans remain optimistic that things will get better. Is this only wishful thinking? It’s too soon to tell, but if America’s history is any indication, then anything is possible.

What a DifferenceA Decade Makes

Remember the Long Boom? How about Y2K? And might

you recall as far back as the early to mid-1990s, when the

United States felt on top of the world? Having stared down

the Soviet Union and won, it had then stepped in to kick

Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and went on to help contain

and end the Balkan conflict. U.S. technology was developing

at warp speed, Silicon Valley was changing the world, and

the fledgling Internet was connecting people everywhere.

Unemployment during the last year of the decade stood at

4.2 percent.

Those pre-2000 times came with their share of worries,

though. By 1998, President Bill Clinton was facing

impeachment in connection with the Paula Jones and Monica

Lewinsky scandals. Parts of the country seemed to take it to

heart, feeling disappointment and disgust with the nation’s

morals. You might recall that George W. Bush campaigned on

a promise to “restore honor and dignity to the White House.”

As always, there were people squawking that the end of the

world was nigh.

On the technology front, the Y2K bug gave many their first

taste of full-blown “techno panic”; there was, after all, an

endless number of abysmal scenarios

ascribed to the anticipated computer

glitch—everything from the prospect

of being eternally stuck in an elevator, to

air-traffic disruption and the shutdown

of water, money, electricity, and food

supplies. As the clock ticked past

23:59:99 to 00:00:00 on Jan. 1, 2000,

Americans and others around the

world held their collective breath.

Nothing happened. Or at least not

much worth reporting.

As the sun rose on the new millennium,

most Americans did not harbor any

serious doubts about the place of

their country in the world, their place

within their country, or their futures.

Most could talk about the American

Dream without irony. Little did they

know that when the clock ticked over

and the 21st century lurched forward,

the good times would begin to recede.

Let’s take a turn around 2000,just for old time’s sake

6 Prosumer Report, November 2011

“Even in the immediate aftermath, you could see that 9/11 was less momentous for some Americans who were at a safe distance from the carnage and grief. By late September, the ratings at CNN, then 24/7 terror central, had fallen by 70 percent.”

—Frank Rich, New York


In fundamental and disturbing ways, the past decade has

given Americans reasons to doubt, and the American

mood has veered between gloomy and angry.

Technology stock euphoria soured spectacularly

between March and September 2000. The

presidential election of 2000 exposed hanging chads,

suffered through recounts and court battles, and

was ultimately decided on the narrowest of margins,

casting doubt over the entire process. The terrorist

attacks of 9/11 traumatized the nation and led to

American military involvement in Afghanistan and

Iraq at a huge cost in lives, material, money, and

reputation. Within months of the World Trade Center

being brought down, the Enron scandal rocked the

nation’s faith in corporate governance and ethics.

Four years on, Hurricane Katrina caused devastation

and raised serious questions about the nation’s

commitment to color- and income-blind equality and

capacity to cope with extreme events.

Then came the subprime crisis of 2007 and the

financial crisis of 2008, sending psychological shocks

from coast to coast and beyond with the collapse of

big financial institutions Bear Stearns and Lehman

Brothers, near-death experiences for others such

as AIG, and the exposure of Bernie Madoff, the

multibillion-dollar fraudster. Facing a crisis of epic,

unprecedented proportions, the U.S. government

bailed out not only the financial sector but also the

stricken auto industry. The turmoil in the business

world somehow felt linked with the woes of the

previous years.

In those first articulations about the Great Recession,

über-investor Warren Buffett called Wall Street’s

complex trading instruments “financial weapons of

mass destruction.” Edgy comedians sniped that “suicide

mortgages” caused much greater and more lasting pain

to Americans than the attacks of 9/11.

The United States has traversed valleys of gloomy

self-doubt before—just look to the Depression, the

tail end of the Vietnam War, and the conclusion

of the Carter presidency. America tends to remain

dramatically more optimistic than many other

countries would in the same situation. A June 2011

survey by Pew Research Center found 57 percent

saying that “as Americans, we can always find ways

to solve our problems and get what we want” as

compared with 37 percent who said, “This country

can’t solve many of its important problems.” Pew said

these numbers were little changed from previous

surveys. One caveat is that millennials in the survey

stood less tall: “Only about a quarter (27 percent) of

those younger than age 30 say the U.S. stands above

all other nations. That compares with 38 percent of

those ages 30 to 49, 40 percent of those 50 to 64 and

half (50 percent) of those 65 and older.”

America has a history of pulling through and

progressing to sunnier uplands, leading most

Americans to believe that this current period of

unease may also resolve itself in due course. At least,

that’s the way it usually works out in the movies.

Since the dark, scary days of autumn 2008, Americans haven’t gotten much in the way of uplifting news, apart from the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. Otherwise, it’s been political trench warfare in Washington, D.C., over matters such as healthcare reform and the budget-deficit ceiling. The job market remains bleak, with unemployment sidelining 9.1 percent of the workforce and the number of involuntary part-time workers climbing to 8.8 million from 8.4 million in August. Suffering, too, are the 2.6 million now off the unemployment rolls because they had not searched for work in the previous four weeks. Confidence further sank when one of the big ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s, downgraded U.S. government debt to AA+ from AAA in August, and there’s widespread talk of China overtaking the United States as the world’s top economic power.

“The country’s blood banks collected close to 600,000 more units in the fall of 2001 than they would have without the attacks. But blood cannot be used more than a few weeks after donation, and more than 200,000 of the 9/11 units were simply discarded.”

—“The Encyclopedia of 9/11,” New York

Among the thousands of images from the Great

Depression of the 1930s, Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant

Mother” has prevailed as the most powerful. Millions of

American men and women were suffering, yet it’s this

picture of a woman—her sun-browned face seemingly

furrowed with a mix of despair and determination as

three young children huddle against her—that continues

to resonate with citizens today.

American women have come a long way since the 1930s.

A decade after “Migrant Mother,” Rosie the Riveter

rolled up her sleeves and got down to the business of

epitomizing the strong, confident woman who worked in

factories as part of the American war effort. After back-

to-the-home domesticity in the late 1940s and the 1950s,

women increasingly progressed through education and

into the workforce. In the 1960s, women’s liberation and

birth control offered women power both personally and

professionally, and by the late 1990s, the media had taken

note of how women were starting to outnumber men in

some colleges and professions.

After decades of stop-and-go, but steady, progress, it’s

women who seem to be feeling the angst most acutely in

the years since 9/11 and on through the Great Recession.

In virtually every survey that Euro RSCG Worldwide has

conducted since 2001, the data show American women

are consistently more worried, fearful, and pessimistic than

American men. And it’s not just our surveys.

Picture Credit: Dorothea Lange/NARA

The American Woman’sWell-Being Deficit

American Audit 11

In both a 2008 and 2010 survey conducted by

the American Psychological Association (APA),

women reported higher levels of stress than

men across the board. In its 2010 national stress

survey, the APA noted, “Though they report

similar average stress levels, women are more

likely than men to report that their stress levels

are on the rise. They are also much more likely

than men to report physical and emotional

symptoms of stress.”

The data suggest that the gains women have

achieved come at a cost. As author Christine

Hassler puts it in a Huffington Post article, “We

expect that not only are we supposed to have

it all but do it all at 100 percent: the career,

relationship, children/family, all while looking

good, doing good and being good.”

Though there’s not yet an iconic image of the

21st century American that can stand alongside

“Migrant Mother” or Rosie the Riveter, the data

in Euro RSCG’s research paints a clear enough

picture of the zeitgeist of American women now.

Modern Life:Worried Sick

American Audit 13

Worries About Lossin Modern Life

The Euro RSCG survey asked respondents to rate their levels of worry about different aspects of modern life on a scale of 1(not at all worried) to 5 (extremely worried). One series of statements highlighted losses. The biggest worry for women was loss of respect for elders: 53 percent of them rated themselves extremely or very worried about it (versus 35 percent of men), which was followed by loss of trusted leaders/role models (49 percent of women rated themselves extremely or very worried versus 38 percent of men).

Across nearly every statement women were more worried than men were; they felt all the losses more keenly than did men.

On September 18, 2001, Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, declared, “I think it is the end of the age of irony.” And irony never really did make a comeback after 9/11.

Chart shows percentage of extremely worried and very worried


Another set of statements highlighted threats and trends that might become threats in the future. Here, too, for all statements, women consistently showed more worry than did men. The biggest concern was problems with the healthcare system—57 percent of women were extremely or very worried about this (versus 48 percent of men)—followed by crime/random violence—54 percent of women were worried, versus 41 percent of men.

Compared with men, women were particularly worried about crime/random violence and terrorism.

Worries About Threats

“On September 11 itself, the attacks needed no label. ‘The Towers,’ ‘The planes’—all sufficed. Soon enough, that changed. The next morning in the New York Times, an op-ed piece by Bill Keller was titled ‘America’s Emergency Line: 9/11.’ (When so many of us were thinking of firemen and cops, those three digits were doubly resonant.) The Washington Post’s Hank Stuever, on September 13, made it explicit: ‘Consider the date, 9/11, which reads as 9-1-1, which is keypad-speak for: Oh God no, help, please. Perhaps the day could simply be called Nine One One.’”

—Christopher Bonanos, New York

American Audit 15

Golden Years, Tarnished

The survey asked respondents to rate their levels of worry about different aspects of aging. The biggest worry for men and women was running out of money: 46 percent of women rated themselves very or extremely worried (versus 35 percent of men).

Across the 20 possible worries, men and women had equal levels of worry about being bored and losing the respect of others, while women showed higher levels of worry across all other aspects of aging. In short, American women are worried. Some are blatantly worried—nail-bitingly, can’t-sleep-through-the-night worried—while others feel an undercurrent of unease and twinges of worry that they may be unaware of until it’s time to think about traveling, decide which candidate to vote for, or whether to save or spend.




Just a few months ago, we were writing about the

protest bug sweeping through the Arab world, parts

of Europe, and beyond. Protesters against the estab-

lished order had taken to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt,

Libya, Bahrain, Greece, Spain, Italy, and Chile, but

what about the United States?

As exceptional as ever, Americans are out of the

blocks a lot quicker than protesters in other countries,

and their protests are different. Other countries have

protested unemployment, job losses, and government

cutbacks; in contrast, the Tea Party has protested

government spending, taxation, and federal debt.

The protests in other countries have tended to have a

left-wing vibe, while the Tea Party movement leans

rightward and regards traditional Republicans as too

centrist.

Even so, the forces that drive the two sorts of protests

have much in common. Protesters in the Arab world

and Europe have shaken their fists at governments

for looking after their own interests at the expense of

ordinary citizens, which isn’t terribly dissimilar to the

original Tea Party protesters, who were ticked off that

their government had spent hundreds of billions of

dollars bailing out financial institutions. The Tea Party

movement now fans the flames of a whole range of

American grievances against the established powers of

government and finance.

The massive bailouts of financial institutions

prompted people of all political persuasions, not

just Tea Partyers, to observe tartly that the financial

system is “capitalism on the way up and socialism on

the way down” or “privatizing profits and socializing

risk.” A major complaint of Tea Party activists has

been against the socialism part of the equation.

Now, with the new “Occupy Wall Street” protest

groups that have spread from New York City across

the country and the world, Americans have their

own version of anti-establishment street protests.

The OWS website states, “Occupy Wall Street is a

leaderless resistance movement with people of many

colors, genders and political persuasions. The one

thing we all have in common is that we are the 99

percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and

corruption of the 1 percent.”

At first glance, the OWS protests look much more

party-like and populated with students than the

earnest Tea Party gatherings—much less likely to

catch the imagination of Middle America, as the

Tea Party did, or early initiatives of the Tea Party.

In early October 2011, an Economist blogger wrote:

“To the extent the Occupy Wall Street protests

are working, it’s because they do the same thing,

focusing attention on a different entity of tremendous

power which the mass of Americans resent and fear:

the financial industry. Many tea-partiers, of course,

are no fans of Wall Street either, and there are plenty

of people who would likely be at home in both a tea-

party protest and the Occupy Wall Street protest.”

Small and disorganized the protests might be, but just

three weeks after starting, they’ve caught the attention

of social media, traditional media, and politicians.

Arab Spring, American Fall

The Financial Times, in an opinion piece headlined “In Praise of Wall Street Protesters,” was pleased that the protesters did not have a clear manifesto or set of demands: “Bankers are adept at turning broad demands for changes in their behavior into trench warfare over detail…Better for Occupy Wall Street to remain outside the skyscrapers and committee rooms and instead keep camping on the edge, reminding the insiders of popular outrage. If they force politicians not to buckle to the complaints of the financial services industry, that will be something.”

22,000September 2010




Figures for American Flag lapel pins gained from the distributor, A Better Idea. American Audit 19

It’s not just House apparatchiks who have taken

notice of OWS. As reported in the Los Angeles

Times, Vice President Joe Biden said OWS and

the Tea Party movement were both driven by

Americans’ sense that the system is not fair or

on the level, while President Obama thought it

expressed Americans’ frustrations that they’re

still seeing “some of the same folks who acted

irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack

down on the abusive practices that got us into

this problem in the first place.”

Now that politicians are showing empathy

for the OWS cause, how will the financial and

business realms respond to these grassroots

protests?

Euro RSCG Worldwide PR CEO Marian Salzman

thinks Wall Street’s response to so much

protesting will be very telling:

“People feel that Streeters are no better

than common criminals and should be

punished for robbing us all of our homes,

our dreams, our futures. What will Wall

Street do to not only rebound but also

rebrand as more and more protesters take

to the streets, cameras watching or not?”

Whether the frustration comes out as Tea Party or

Occupy Wall Street, the emotional drivers have a lot in

common. The OWS lament “Banks got bailed out, we got

sold out” could have come from either camp.

Tea Party activists have already had an impact on

American politics; a relatively small number of

energetic Tea Partyers have shaken up the GOP and

shaped its agenda. Will OWS have a similar impact on

the Democrats? It’s too soon to tell just yet, but there

are signs that the movement is gaining traction fast.

Representatives Raúl M. Grijalva and Keith Ellison,

co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC),

lined up behind OWS with a statement of solidarity:

“We have been inspired by the growing grassroots

movements on Wall Street and across the

country. We share the anger and frustration of so

many Americans who have seen the enormous

toll that an unchecked Wall Street has taken

on the overwhelming majority of Americans

while benefitting the super wealthy. We join the

calls for corporate accountability and expanded

middle-class opportunity...Throughout the

summer, CPC Members listened to Americans

nationwide describe how it feels to be on the

wrong side of the wall between the rich and

the rest of us…We heard compelling stories of

Americans struggling to live the American dream

while CEOs and the super rich were given more

taxpayer handouts.”

The Great Divides

The former French leader General Charles de Gaulle

once said something along the lines of: How can

you expect to unite a country that has over 300

different cheeses?

De Gaulle was, of course, talking about France, but,

applying the same thinking to the United States,

a leader might have asked: How can you expect to

unite a country that uses nine standard time zones,

is geographically fragmented by mountains, rivers,

plains, and vast deserts, and includes dozens of

major ethnic groups, cultures, and religions?

Division is part of the package in a country

where stone-cold-sober Mormons live in the state

neighboring Las Vegas and where well-heeled D.C.

legislators and lobbyists work in a city with the

fourth-highest poverty rate in the country.

Division and diversity have always been part of

the essential makeup of the United States. The

country’s efforts to bridge these wide divisions

have been at times heroic and tragic, and certainly

historical. That’s why it’s called the United States.

That’s why the American flag represents each state

as part of a whole and why the motto on the Great

Seal is “E pluribus unum” (“Out of many, one”).

That’s why students recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Yet over the last decade or two, American public

discourse has homed in on the opposite trend—on

the growing polarization of Americans: Red versus

Blue, Conservatives versus Liberals, Pro-Life versus

Pro-Choice, Wall Street versus Main Street, Rust

Belt versus Sun Belt, Coasts versus Hinterland.

Americans are both fascinated by and fearful

of these divisions. The Civil War of 1861–1865

pitted North against South and still resonates for

many. The Civil Rights movement in the 1960s

pushed racial divisions to the forefront of public

awareness, and the presidential election of Barack

Obama has shown that for many Americans race

is still a divisive issue. The growth of Spanish-

speaking communities has added another racial

fracture into the mix. In post–9/11 America,

attitudes toward Islam and Muslim-Americans

have surfaced as yet another divisive issue.


“What I say to parents at memorial services is ‘You can’t do anything about Johnny. The priest says he is in a better place. Okay, you believe that, you believe that. But you can build a better world for him. So start a memorial fund, or just have a good life. And make sure his kids don’t grieve.’”

—New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg

20 Prosumer Report, November 2011 American Audit 23

we’re losing the ability to engage in civil debate;

people aren’t as willing to consider other points of

view anymore,” 60 percent of Americans agreed, with

the highest numbers among the 46-to-65 cohort (69

percent), women (62 percent), and Prosumers (70

percent).

Anyone who’s ever interacted online knows all too

well about flame wars, trolls, and cyber-bullying.

Interacting with one another remotely through

computer screens and digital devices can make

Americans less civil. Emotional Intelligence expert

Daniel Goleman coined the term cyber-disinhibition to

describe the effects of Internet-based communications

in which the usual face-to-face social checks on

negative behavior are absent; when online people

feel less bound by the normal social conventions of

politeness.

When it comes to online discourse about politics,

it turns out that the disagreements get especially

vicious. Just look at a study conducted by a group

of networks and systems researchers at Indiana

University. They investigated online polarization by

examining 250,000 Twitter messages in the six weeks

leading up to the 2010 U.S. congressional midterm

elections. In their report, the researchers concluded,

“Our experience with this body of data suggests that

the content of political discourse on Twitter remains

highly partisan. Many messages contain sentiments

more extreme than you would expect to encounter in

face-to-face interactions, and the content is frequently

disparaging of the identities and views associated with

users across the partisan divide.”

Many of the divisions in American life were

once played out in local communities and in the

mainstream media: TV, newspapers, magazines, and

books. Clashes of opinion could get pretty strident,

but their frequency and intensity were constricted

by the limitations of the media themselves; outlets

were far fewer in number and only “insiders” could

get their opinions out to the American public.

Now, in the America of social media and multi-

channel TV, the divisions in American society are

a lot more apparent; they are writ large, often and

intensely. With so much content available, and so

many ways to access it, there’s a selective pressure

favoring high-energy, extreme views expressed

with language and emotional force that would have

been unthinkable little more than a decade ago.

In Euro RSCG’s research of 500 Americans, 41 percent

of respondents said they were very or extremely

worried about the loss of civility and politeness in

public life, versus 25 percent who were worried

only slightly or not at all. Not all segments of the

population were equally concerned. A majority

(54 percent) of the 46-to-65 cohort were worried,

compared with 35 percent of the 18-to-30 cohort;

older Americans can contrast today’s attitudes and

behavior with times gone by, whereas younger

Americans have grown up with public ranting and

cussing. Far more women than men expressed

worry about the loss of civility—47 percent versus

36 percent—both reflecting and feeding American

women’s underlying anxiety about the way things are

going. Americans are even more worried about the

tone of debate. Considering the statement “I worry


The American Dream is anchored by

the belief and implicit promise that

with hard work and determination

anybody can make good, regardless

of race, creed, or color, and regardless

of whether they began penniless.

People from other countries, including

neighboring Canada, are often

surprised by how much Americans

tolerate the relative lack of job

security and social safety nets in

the United States. For their part,

Americans accept and even value this

risk as the price of the freedom they

cherish, upholding it as a necessary

condition of the can-do dynamism that

has made America great. Being free

to succeed also means being free to

fail. Sure enough, the past decade has

delivered its share of American Dream

icons, especially in technology: Google

founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page,

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg,

and the much-missed Steve Jobs,

co-founder of Apple, who was given up

for adoption at birth and later dropped

out of college.

Nonetheless, the economic storm that

began in 2007 and 2008 has prompted

some Americans to wonder whether

the American Dream is just one big

house of cards.

The feeling of prosperity many Americans enjoyed until the

bust owed a lot—literally—to plenty of easy credit, which

dried up in 2008. Behind the bubble of credit, the majority of

Americans have suffered a steady decline in real income. The

2010 “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the

United States” report from the U.S. Bureau of Census says real

median household income was $49,445 in 2010, a 2.3 percent

decline from 2009. Since 2007, median household income

has declined 6.4 percent and is 7.1 percent below the median

household income peak that occurred in 1999.

Ordinarily, ever-hopeful Americans would be willing to tough

it out through a downturn, choosing to believe that backsliding

on the ladder of prosperity is only the flip side of going up.

However, as the Great Recession grinds on, even the eternal

optimists have begun to question the country’s unwieldy

financial structure. Both Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street

activists have thought long and hard about all the money in

the news: Who pays, who benefits most, and what are the

implications?

Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz made waves with a

2011 Vanity Fair article headlined “Of the 1 percent, by the

1 percent, for the 1 percent,” in which he outlined how the

wealthy few have become wealthier while the majority have

become poorer. According to Stiglitz:

“The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in

nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In

terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent

control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved

considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding

figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. Virtually all U.S.

senators, and most of the representatives in the House,

are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are

kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know

that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be

rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office.”

The AmericanDream, Deferred

American Audit 25

Reflecting on social mobility and inequality,

The Economist said, “Parental income is a better

predictor of a child’s future in America than in

much of Europe, implying that social mobility

is less powerful.”

In other words, if the American Dream purports to

allow people to better their situations through hard

work, then other countries may offer a better shot at

attaining that dream.

However, all the pointy-head studies and learned

hand-wringing don’t much matter if ordinary middle-

class Americans ignore it or disbelieve it. The Pew

Economic Mobility Project also finds that despite the

bad economy, most Americans remain optimistic:

31 percent say they have achieved the American

Dream, 37 percent say they will reach it, and just

27 percent think they will not reach it; 54 percent

believe they will be better off 10 years from now, and

68 percent believe that their kids will be at least as

well off as they are now.

In a 10-part series of articles in Slate magazine

entitled “The United States of Inequality,” Timothy

Noah noted that a century ago, in the era of the

Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, and the Carnegies,

the richest 1 percent accounted for 18 percent of

the nation’s income. Income distribution now is

more unequal than it was 100 years ago. In fact,

according to figures from the CIA, the United States

scores slightly better than Jamaica and Bulgaria but

slightly worse than Iran, Uganda, and Nigeria in

the inequality of family income. After interviewing

economists and researching the subject, Noah

concluded that growing income inequality is

due to a number of factors: immigration putting

downward pressure on wages, tax policy, trade

and globalization outsourcing to and importing

from lower-wage countries, and Wall Street’s and

corporate boards’ pampering of the extremely

wealthy, with greater shares of profits going to

remuneration and being channeled into finance.

Noah also blamed the education system for failing

to educate people well enough to meet the needs

of the changing economy: people with graduate

and postgraduate degrees were in relatively short

supply and could bid up their salaries, leaving the

less educated behind.

No matter the causes of the country’s income

inequality, Americans have always accepted that

some get rich and some don’t. While the poor in the

United States admire their rich and want to climb

the ladder to join them, the poor in other countries

reportedly envy and hate their rich and want to

bring them down. What counts for Americans

is the freedom to improve social mobility. The

trouble is, Americans’ social mobility has declined.

The nonprofit Pew Economic Mobility Project

reports that Americans and Canadians have similar

attitudes and aspirations about improving their

situations, with a similar emphasis on work ethic

and ambition; however, sons born to Canadian

fathers in the bottom third of the earnings

distribution are more likely to make it to the top

half of the distribution in adulthood than are sons

of comparably low-earning American fathers.

Republican defeat in 2008 triggered the mobilization of the

Tea Party and unflinching opposition to President Obama in

Congress and across the country. The Republicans rode a wave

of grassroots discontent to take control of Congress in the 2010

midterm elections and stiffen opposition to the president and his

ambitions. The liberal euphoria that accompanied Obama’s 2008

election faded and was gradually replaced by disappointment.

With the economy floundering in a jobless recovery, the

nation was forced to endure the spectacle of the president

and House Speaker John Boehner playing chicken with debt-

ceiling negotiations that went down to the wire through July

2011. The high-stakes game in D.C. did not play well with the

public: according to a poll conducted for Pew Research Center

and The Washington Post, 72 percent of Americans regarded the

standoff negatively, using words such as ridiculous, disgusting, stupid,

frustrating, terrible, disappointing, childish, and a joke.

The next scheduled big event in American public life is the 2012

presidential election. With the economy in bad shape and no

political wins in his bank since 2008, Obama has been looking

every bit the one-term president, with an approval rating of

minus 20 as of October 29, 2011 compared with plus 29 in

January 2009 (Rasmussen Reports, Obama Approval Index).

However, some of his potential opponents dropped out of the

running even before the Republican primaries: experienced

operative Haley Barbour withdrew in April and Palin announced

in October that she would not run.

Conservatives won’t be getting excited about former

Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney; they may find Texas

governor Rick Perry a more interesting proposition, but he could

be too much for non-Texan, non-conservative Americans choosing

their next president.

The past three years have been an emotional roller coaster for Americans. The economic train wreck of 2007

to 2008 gave millions—including leaders—the feeling of staring into an abyss. In the run-up to the 2008

presidential election, conservatives were fired up by the sassy, rugged outsider appeal of Republican vice-

presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Liberals were inspired by the soaring rhetoric and “audacity of hope” of

Barack Obama.

A Way Out

Whoever wins in 2012 is unlikely to

find the state of the nation any better

than it is now, or than it was when

Obama won in 2008. As the satiric

publication The Onion reported in

November 2008:

“African-American man Barack

Obama, 47, was given the

least-desirable job in the entire

country Tuesday when he was

elected president of the United

States of America. In his new

high-stress, low-reward position,

Obama will be charged with such

tasks as completely overhauling

the nation’s broken-down

economy, repairing the crumbling

infrastructure, and generally

having to please more than 300

million Americans and cater

to their every whim on a daily

basis. As part of his duties, the

black man will have to spend four

to eight years cleaning up the

messes other people left behind.”

Whatever the candidates promise

and whoever wins, it’s unlikely that

ordinary Americans will expect

much from them. Recent CNN/ORC

International and USA Today/Gallup

polls show a continuing decline of

American trust in politicians and


government to do what’s needed. Nevertheless, people expect things to improve somehow because, in America,

optimism is next to patriotism—a must-have virtue. The question is: How will this change happen?

At first glance, there’s no reason to take the Occupy Wall Street protests at all seriously. They involve just

a few hundred people, the vibe is more Woodstock redux than political movement, and the patience of

local people affected by the protests is wearing thin. Yet something about these protests is resonating with

influential people in the media and in politics—right up to the president. Plenty of people are annoyed that

OWS doesn’t have a clear program or set of demands, but that doesn’t seem to matter in terms of its viral appeal.

People are sympathetic to this particular protest because it seems to say: Something has gone terribly wrong, gross

unfairness has prevailed, and business and politics as usual aren’t working for ordinary Americans.

Wintry weather may soon put a stop to the outdoor protests and steal momentum from the whole thing or—under

the microscope of the media—Occupy Wall Street could morph and grow into something more enduring and

influential, especially if it takes hold through social media. This movement could become the X Factor of the year

ahead—unpolished, barely articulate, yet instinctively appealing. Stranger things have happened.

Date post:	21-Jan-2015
Category:	News & Politics
Upload:	havaspr
View:	118 times
Download:	0 times

Prosumer American Audit

News & Politics