What Is The American Dream Is The American Dream Still Achievable Wh

What is the American Dream? Is the American Dream still achievable? What is an opportunity and how can we plan for it? The questions remain. Everyone's dream is to own their own business and to be their own manager. Proper steps and timing must be used in order to reach this so called "American dream". However, it is the steps that deter people from achieving their dream. Opportunity is only available for people that desire to achieve. We live in a market economy. A \"market\" is a place where goods are bought and sold. This also means that the market or marketplace is the possibility of sale. Goods \"find a market." If you have a product, eventually you will find a place in the market where it can be most profitable. There is also a market for services. Services can be bought and sold the same way that commodities are bought and sold. Whether it be a service or a commodity, if there is a demand for it the product and/or commodity will be sold. Markets are opened to those who want to sell their product or commodity. Markets are also available for the convenience of those looking to purchase a particular product or service. The market represents an opportunity for all, buyers, and sellers. A market economy works on market "pressures" that develop for different commodities. These "pressures" are defined as an offering of the product, the choice of whether or not the product or service should be bought and time constraints. As business owners gli mpse the future, decisions are made on the basis of the following factors: (1) Profit (2) Capital Investments (3) Production results. The owner of the business will review what profit has been made from their production and what losses they have incurred through that process. After reviewing the results of the profit margin, the owner must make decisions to increase volume. This process usually involves hiring more people, buying more materials, and often bidding up their prices to increase competition. When businessmen compete in the same market, it creates increased "pressure" towards the direction of expansion. On the contrary, as opportunity cost raises so do options and possibilities for competition. When rates increase, "pressures" begin to operate against profits. Macroeconomic reforms should translate into a more efficient delivery of public services, equity, social welfare, and social security. This would give the public community a fair allocation of the benefits that are provided. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has released its findings on American living standards. This report began in the late-1970's and was issued every year thereafter. The EPI's report contends that Americans are working more for less money because of slow growth in wages (since 1989). According to the report, a poll was taken on the wages of men in the bottom 80%. Findings show that there has been a decline since 1989. The report also contends that 20% of women have experienced a decline in wages the 1980's, a period in which wages fell but family income increased because of longer hours at work and increased participation of women in the workforce. Critics assert that the report wrongly focuses on declining wages as a gauge to the income of the American family. Such critics find spending a more appropriate means by which to measure income.(cite 4) One proposal would birng back the 10% income deduction for second earners that was eliminated in the Tax Reform Act of 1986.(cite 5) Unde r that rule, a couple with two earners can deduct from taxable income 10 percent of the earnings of the spouse with the lower earnings(generally, the wife) up to 30,000 of earnings.(cite 5) Since almost all married working women earn less than 30,000, this is equivalent to a 10 percent reduction in the wife's marginal tax rate.(cite 5) To get a sense of how substansial this offset would be, consider a typical middle-class two earner couple. The husband earns 45,000 per year, and the wife earns $15,000 per year by working 1,000 hours at $15 per hour. They pay tax at a marginal income tax rate of 28 percent plus a payroll tax of 7.65 percent.(cite 5) They also pay at a typical state income tax