What does the term "The American Dream" mean in 2011?

[steelersman]

What does the American Dream mean today? Does anyone want to actually live the American Dream?

[sulavaca]

I think it now means being able to provide a roof over one's head and food in the pantry for a huge number. For a few more publicised Americans it means figuring out whether to buy a small island with a yacht or a penthouse apartment in a Trump building. And for the government it means somehow stringing some numbers together quickly to try to maintain the illusion that they aren't already bankrupt.

Personally I think not just the Americans, but even the likes of the British have been living in cloud cuckoo land for the past twenty years. It still baffles me how such a clever collective could have been so thick when it came to finances.

[RobinTaiwan]

What does the American Dream mean today? Does anyone want to actually live the American Dream?

It still means the same thing as it always has, except, fewer and fewer people actually see the dream come true. Most people only experience the American Nightmare.

[petr0lb0mb]

In California, I think the American dream is to be able to short sell the (now upside down) house you bought when the market was at it's highest a couple of years ago and still, hopefully, find someone willing to rent to you with your horrible credit score. Lose your job and collect unemployment for as long as you can and hope no medical or dental emergencies arise. Be happy that you are somehow able to manage to come up with the $45 needed to fill your tank every time you visit the gas station. Hope the fuzz don't pull you over and ticket you for anything because you don't have an extra couple of thousand dollars lying around to pay the fines.

Or something like that.

[urodacus]

I had an American dream last night. Halle Berry and Jessica Alba were in it. Hoo yeah!

[GuyInTaiwan]

The point is that even before the GFC, people weren't trying to live the American dream as it used to be. If they had, they wouldn't be in deep shit. The American dream as it existed two generations ago involved, amongst other things, a house about half the size of current houses, one (modest) car, and so on and so forth, where the only debt people incurred was a mortgage that they could reasonably afford. The modern American and others are like Icarus and now they're complaining because they're hurtling rapidly towards an unhappy demise.