THE MATERIAL PILLAR

---

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

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

                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 psychiatrists. 

                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. People use credit cards to pay day-to-day expenses, for car and home repairs, unexpected expenses and everything else and in between. Balances grow with high interest rates. Huge debt results.

                  Health care with medical bills rises faster than paychecks.

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, living in the bottom when it comes to income and wealth, do not make enough money to afford a minimal quality of life. While the elite/rich, measuring as few, live in the top in income and wealth. Retirement crisis looms.

                 This is your world making it difficult to develop a sense of accomplishment and stability to support the Pillars of Man.