We are in a death spiral, economically speaking, and the economic "elites" know it. And they are scared. More scared then I have ever seen them in my lifetime. They have pushed things too far and the monster has broken free of its cage. When the credit crunch first hit, I thought that the hysterical cries from Wall Street to Bernanke to lower rates was simply motivated self interest, a microcosm of disaster capitalism (taking advantage of a real or perceived crisis to push for reform favorable to the corporatists) described by Naomi Klein in her book "The Shock Doctrine".

I am not a big fan of hero worship. In fact, I gave up hero worship when I was thirteen years old. It was 1987 and I idolized Sylvester Stallone. I wanted to look like him and be like him. I remember being in this delusional state where I gave him credit for qualities that he may or may not have had based solely on my hero worship. This all came crashing down one day when I was riding in a car with my Dad and I was going on and on about how great Sylvester Stallone was. It was probably a bit amusing for my Dad to listen to the rambling enthusiasms of a thirteen year old but I can imagine his irritation as I waxed on about Stallone’s glorious attributes and apparently went to far when I told my Dad with total sincerity that I thought that Stallone was probably one of the top fifty people in the world in terms of physical strength.

I have been coming to this site since election night 2004 when I stumbled onto it out of sheer desperation to find a community that I could share my frustration and confusion with regarding that terrible night. I have since been checking in daily and this site has become a tremendous resource in my life. I thank you all for making this place great.

As far as this diary is concerned the intent is to share a bit of perspective regarding the life of an early thirties nobody in America. I am not rich or powerful nor am I poor or helpless. I am a middle of the pack kind of guy and that is all right with me. I am happily married to my college girlfriend and we have a one year old son who is the joy of our lives. I would characterize us as simple people, very "hobbit-like" if you will and we have never gone in for "conspicuous consumption" or anything like that. We have gone from making a combined income of over $200,000 back in 2001-2004 (when we were both working and childless) to our current situation whereby my wife is home with our son and I work for about $50,000.

Nothing we don't already know here....but they really are fascist pigs over at RedState.org

They are part and parcel of the current rightwing personality. Strict authoritarianism, no tolerance for honest debate, it is really unbeleivable. I was banned inside of 5 minutes. I have included the entire comment thread for your review. If you read it, pay special attention to the fact that I did not use profanity, nor engage in any name calling when making my arguments.

Alas, civilized discourse is just not in their blood I guess. I know these are the nuttiest of the nutty rightwingers, but this is what makes up the core of the Rethuglican base and it is good to see, from time to time, what we are dealing with. If these guys are in control of the country........I think we got problems.

It just makes me appreciate Daily Kos even more. At least people can come here and post disagreements and we engage them. As you will see, they do it a little differently over there.

This is the first time I have posted a diary and I am not the best writer, so bear with me. I will try to stay organized and focused, but this diary is going to be a mixture of analysis, part anecdotal, part statistical and part rant.