THE MATERIAL PILLAR

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          The body, that is materially and mentally secure and well, is free to doubt growing intellectually. But this freedom is elusive when living no different from the servants of Feudal Europe; living no different than the brute of the forest.

         With the failing of this first pillar, the Physical Pillar, all else follows in failure. 

         A life consumed with endless efforts to be warm, avoiding the cold, to be well nourished, avoiding hunger, to have a dry roof over your head, to survive the day to witness the next day’s rising of the sun, is to live in a physical and mental wasteland.

        No one can live a good life, a happy life, without the support given by the material world of this Physical Pillar. 

         Looking at the material world in which Americans live and work, we see a world failing to provide the foundation of a materially well America explaining the widespread unhappiness seen in alcoholism, drug addiction, medications of all kinds pushed by the therapists and psychologists. 

          One need to look no further than where and how Americans work to see the soil for human flourishing is a wasteland. Over 70% of US employees work in the private service industry working among many jobs such as cooking and serving hamburgers, French fries, grocery clerks, cashiers, salesmen selling clothes and so on with far fewer working in manufacturing, all suffering long hours, poor working conditions, at substandard wages.

            When you check out at the grocery store, the hardware store, the convenience store, the mattress store, look at the cashier and see the face of the American worker.

            The people before you come from households where the average monthly housing expenses totaling $6,080.00 are to be paid from an average monthly household income before taxes of $5,250.00. The ends do not meet.

            Credit cards by necessity are a standard part of financial management with 82% of Americans having one credit card or more. People use credit cards to pay day-to-day expenses, then for car repairs, home repairs, unexpected expenses and everything else and in between. Balances are carried with high interest rates. Huge debt results.

           Biggest expense is becoming health care expenses with medical bills rising faster than paychecks.

Budgets tighten under the onslaught of increasing interest rates making financial goals of the worker out of reach. 

          40 to 60% of workers report they do not earn enough to cover expenses or save. Millions fail to make a living wage. 60% live check to check. 12% have enough saved for only two months of expenses.

Bottom 60% of US households do not make enough money to afford a minimal quality of life.  Workers in the millions, most of the employed, live in the bottom when it comes to income. The elite/rich, measuring as few, live in the top in income. 

          This is our world. This is your world.

           In such a world it is difficult to develop a sense of accomplishment and stability to support the other Pillars of life leading to a retirement crisis.