{"id":3244,"date":"2011-08-27T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-27T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=3244"},"modified":"2011-08-26T21:15:48","modified_gmt":"2011-08-27T02:15:48","slug":"will-rising-anger-about-personal-economic-pain-lead-to-trouble-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=3244","title":{"rendered":"Will rising anger about personal economic pain lead to trouble soon?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When I saw Ryan Friday evening, I knew he was upset. He was just getting to work, but he looked beaten and angry. He sat down to tell me his story.<\/p>\n

Ryan’s a young guy who went to buy a car Friday. He took slightly more than $2,000 to a dealership to buy a car that costs about $10,000. After test driving the car and agreeing to a price, he filled out all the paperwork — only to be told at the end that he didn’t make enough money, even though he works full time and has a good record.<\/p>\n

He was hurt and angry. It wasn’t just that he needed a car. He felt that he had done everything he’s been told he’s supposed to do as a young adult in this society, but he’s not finding the opportunities he expected — and he’s hearing “no” often enough that he’s getting frustrated. And his frustration is turning to anger.<\/p>\n

How much anger has to build up in a reasonably peaceful society before violence starts? I don’t know, but I do know that I’m talking to more and more people who are angry. And it worries me.<\/p>\n

I have no idea whether Ryan should have gotten a car loan today. A few years ago, I suspect he would have driven the car off the lot with that kind of down payment, but that’s not really the point. The point is that there are a lot<\/em> of people right now who feel<\/em> the way Ryan feels.<\/p>\n

They’re angry. They’re frustrated. And they feel as though they’ve been cheated in some way by a system that doesn’t meet their needs. I’m not arguing that they’re right. I’m just suggesting that we’re going to reach a certain point at which the Ryans of the country — people who had a stake in the system in the past — are going to get angry enough to do something<\/em>. What will that be? I have no idea. Riots? Turning to lives of crime? Demanding more from governments?<\/p>\n

All I know is that if the anger keeps building, we’re not going to like the results. A free market works for everyone. A rigged market manipulated for the benefit of certain people — with no concern for the angry people it creates at the bottom — can’t last forever. The clock is ticking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I saw Ryan Friday evening, I knew he was upset. He was just getting to work, but he looked beaten and angry. He sat down to tell me his story. Ryan’s a young guy who went to buy a car Friday. He took slightly more than $2,000 to a dealership to buy a car Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-Qk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3244"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3258,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions\/3258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}