Third World America

Arianna Huffington has a new book coming out entitled Third World America. It will be discussing why America is in danger of becoming a Third World country. I have been reading Arianna's columns on The Huffington Post for a while now. I find it interesting because most of my bankruptcy clients and real estate clients who are really struggling are in the middle class. These are generally families who have never faced severe financial issues and who never thought they would. It has felt like America is trying to eliminate the middle class. Somehow everyone thinks that the people who are filing for bankruptcy or selling their homes in a short sale are irresponsible and have spent too much money. Most of the time it is because of a rapid and dramatic decrease in income that could not have been anticipated. Most of my clients feel badly that they have to file bankruptcy or let their house go (through a short sale or foreclosure).

I personally think a large part of the solution is to hold our elected officials accountable to us, the voters, rather than to big corporations. Right now it seems like corporations are running our government regardless of the cost to normal, hard-working Americans. I look forward to reading Ms. Huffington's book to see if she can make sense of this very strange path our economy is taking.