American Dream

The american dream in reverse?.

It was the 30th of January 2009, President of the United States of America Barack Obama was responded to the news announced by the Commerce Department that the U.S economy sank further in the last quarter of the previous year (3.8%), saying it was a symbol of the suffering of the American people constituting "the American dream in reverse." This term is now used to describe the current contraction that the U.S economy today finds itself in.To understand what the american dream is in reverse you first must understand what the american dream is. For many Americans throughout the year it was all about ownership.Two years previous to Obamas statement an article by the editor of the New York Times who describes how the contraction can been seen as the american dream in reverse wrote that "For the first time since the Carter administration, homeownership in the United States is set to decline over a president’s tenure. When President Bush took office in 2001, homeownership stood at 67.6 percent. It rose as the mortgage bubble inflated but is projected to fall to 67 percent by early 2009, which would come to 700,000 fewer homeowners than when Mr. Bush started." (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/opinion/08mon1.html?_r=1) Ownership is one of the key foundations of the american Dream, With declining levels of ownership there is only one outcome for the dream.

What is the American Dream?
The term that is 'The American Dream' is used in many different ways, But essentially it is the idea that all people even non Americanc can be succesfull through hard work, and that everyone can live a happy, succesfull life. The subject of the American dream is the matter of much debate in the world today. Defintions are vast and varied with the declartion of independance often refrenced as the brainchild of the idea as it states that "All men are created equal" and that there "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights"...