Nope the economy has grown for everyone, some just choose the doom and gloom path and wait for someone to take care of them.
I have opportunities my Grandfather could only dream about just because of this thing called the Internet.
The amount of information available at your fingertips is astonishing when you stop to consider it. And a smart person can use that info to better their financial situation with little effort. But most use it to surf porn, or see what disgusting stunt some Hollywood bimbo did. And usually they are the ones yelling about how the country is worse off now and it was better in my father's day. Well it wasn't better. Sorry but if you live in the USA and are having a hard time making it you either are just ignoring the opportunities around you or just don't want to put forth the effort.
My little town is full of business success stories. The funny thing is most of those successes are by people who were not born in this country and moved here as adults. There are two within a stone's throw of me that are millionaires and a third who will soon be one. I've discussed with them the opportunities America has to offer and they all scoff at the notion that "its too hard now to make it." I know how hard my dad worked and how hard my grandfather worked. We have it easy now, IF we use the tools available.
But few do.
So what? There's plenty of information available, but most of it has nothing to do with actually producing anything. I'm in an engineering field, and I google all kinds of topics that come up in my day to day work. Rarely do I find anything published on the internet that actually helps me make engineering decisions. The useful information is in the same journals and reference books that were available forty years ago. These references contain updated information, and there are more of them. However, the task of doing the research and finding the answers hasn't changed significantly. The only thing that the "information superhighway" does is allow the bean counters to think that they can do the same technical work with fewer people.
Sorry but if you live in the USA and are having a hard time making it you either are just ignoring the opportunities around you or just don't want to put forth the effort.
Sorry, but this statement simply isn't true. If you've got "the gift of gab" and are a good salesman, you'll always be able to make a living. If you are good at sucking up to the right people and playing political games, you can do very well. There are jobs for paper-shufflers, what Margaret Thatcher used to call "the chattering class." For more technical people, the situation is not as good as it once was.
If you bother to read carefully, you'll see that I never said that people couldn't make it. Yes, most people who put forth a great effort will do well enough. However, we are getting a lower return on our efforts than our fathers and grandfathers did. The internet may allow you to do different things than what your grandfather did, but the overall return on effort will not necessarily be better.
Bill