Article Review: The Death of The American Dream

In a recent article from the year 2011 on both how and why the so called "American Dream" is dead makes total sense to me. However, I disagree with one point Walter Russell Mead makes regarding complete absence of the dream from declining of stocks to the second dip of double housing downturn we are currently facing. In my opinion, the "American Dream" is not dead, instead, it's dying. The fact that were are living IN the days of society's downfall doesn't yet make it apart of America's past if we are still in it. ".For eighty years we have defined the American dream as an owner occupied family home, preferably with a nice swathe of crabgrass-free lawn around it. The home mortgage was the centerpiece of a society of consumers based on debt-financed living...." This qoute implies and indicates the ways of life in a perception that's lasted several decades and is the opposite of today's housing marketing in which is slowly but surely deteriorating. As much as people tried to eschew the inevitable down spiraling of the U.S. Moreover, American housing policy has come to an dead end. We can no longer excite the economy successfully by motivating more and more citizens to take for granted higher levels of debt. The bad news has come at a bad time. The Baby Boomers, the least provident and most demanding generation in American history, are beginning to hit retirement. For decades, many Boomers comforted themselves with the illusion owning a home would provide them with the savings they would need in retirement. Now many of them haven’t paid off their mortgages and they not only don’t have a lot of equity left; in some cases they cannot afford to sell their depreciated homes. In relation to Jay Gatsby (also known as James Gatz) in the novel The Great Gatsby, he fell in love with the luxurious lifestyle with all America had to offer in the 1920s (which would be considered the "American Dream"). Jay Gatsby was unable to dissemble his feelings for not only Daisy,but this turning this his dream of wealth into reality not realizing the fallacies it with held.