Ironic indeed! From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:
This is not to suggest living/working overseas is a panacea or easy–it isn’t.
There is an inescapable irony in The American Dream no longer being affordable in America for the majority of Americans. Definitions vary, of course, but The American Dream typically includes being able to obtain higher education, a home, a family, a family enterprise and some measure of ownership of assets that provide financial security, on wages / salaries that are within reach of the bottom 80% of workers.
Put another way: if The American Dream is only affordable to those earning $250,000 a year and up or those who inherit family wealth, it isn’t The American Dream. The American Dream is defined as starting with nothing but ambition and a willingness to work hard and save money and acquire all of the good things listed above without borrowing a small fortune for each one.
It seems taboo to say this, but The American Dream implicitly includes a goal of no debt: no student loan debt, no home mortgage, no medical debt, no debt at all: assets are owned free and clear, and college is paid out of earnings or student loans are paid off in the first few years of full-time work.
Anything less isn’t The American Dream, it’s a debt-dependent facsimile, a travesty of a mockery of a sham of The American Dream.
That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
George Carlin
“Freedom” in capitalist countries exists only for those who possess money and who consequently hold power.
Nikita Khrushchev