Another shattered American dream

ABC's Nightline aired a story titled "Families in Foreclosure" last night. Glad to see the mainstream media reporting more stories like this, but wish they wouldn't wait until 11:30 p.m. to do so. This stuff needs to be in prime time and on every front page of every newspaper, which maybe will force people, particularly government leaders, to wake up.

You can watch the video here: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/

A Mason, Ohio couple and their young daughter, son and family dog are featured in the piece. They didn't lose their home because they bought too big of a house, drove new cars or were shopaholics drowning in credit card debt. This isn't a story about some slimy mortgage company that conned them into something they couldn't afford. They lost their home because of a perfect storm that is becoming all too common.

Neighbors were in tears watching the family pack their belongings. Apparently, these were modest, well-liked folks. No country clubbers or CEOs with golden parachutes in this humble neighborhood.

Tears flowed again when the parents walked the young girl to her bus stop for a final time. I don't know how parents explain these things to children.

The husband, a veteran, hurt his back badly while on the job at a warehouse. While on disability leave, his firm merged with another company. That created downsizing and layoffs. He lost his job. Meanwhile, his wife has Crohn's Disease, which has hospitalized her 19 times in 20 years. Her medical bills began piling up and the couple was evicted from their modest $115,000 townhouse. The show documents their last few days in their home.

Fortunately, the couple was able to move in with a family member. But you could tell that losing their home was nonetheless painful and tragic. Another of those life scars we all accumulate at sometime or another. Still, they did have shelter in the aftermath. Could have been worse.

One has to wonder where others, without family members to take them in, will go when they lose their jobs, savings and homes.

Once again, another American family, through no fault of their own, has fallen victim to corporate downsizing, unmanageable medical bills and just bad luck. These tales are increasing at an alarming rate, hitting closer and closer to home, and are eating away at the core values that made this country strong.

As a journalist and quasi blogger, I consider what is happening now as the biggest story of our generation, yet it still doesn't get the play it should. Judging from my own declining blog traffic, it appears people just want to stick their heads in the sand about the economy, unemployment and the domino effect of it all.

Meanwhile, the president is continuing his globetrotting ways and the deficit is getting bigger by the second, which potentially means if we ever get out of this recession, rampant inflation will follow. Most economists believe taxes are going to have to go sky high in future in order to pay for all the government spending going on now. Interest rates on mortgages and car loans could return to the upper teens, where they were in the late 1970s and early 80s.

There are growing reports that those who crossed the border to come here in recent years for work are going back to Mexico to find jobs. More astonishingly, those in Mexico are now sending what little money they have to help out relatives in America who have fallen upon hard times.

From Mason, Ohio to Southern California to the shores of Florida, the situation is the same. And when I see stories like the one last night, I wonder what the future holds for my own daughter. She is well educated and hard working, yet I don't know if that's enough anymore.

For folks my age in similar predicaments, time is our biggest enemy. I hear the clock ticking every minute of every day.

I think the American dream is being rewritten with each story like the one in Mason, Ohio. I don't know what the final chapter will read like, but I know the cast of characters is growing more than most people realize.