The Watchdog That Didn T Bark Analysis

Following Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech of August 1963, many Americans, especially African Americans, felt uplifted by his words. To live in a country where anybody can achieve what their heart desires, where the playing field is level, (so to speak), was Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. In his dream, racial discrimination is unheard of. Anybody can learn what they want to learn, work wherever they want to work, marry whoever they want to marry, and make as much money as they want to make. Americans’ current vision of the American Dream is loosely based on King’s vision, where there are no inequalities between any individuals; where everybody is capable of achieving their dreams, provided they work for it. Today, the common

According to the author of "The Watchdog that Didn’t Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism", reporter, and editor, Dean Starkman, “…obstacles to wealth (i.e., methods of gross discrimination) remain very much in place for blacks today. Notwithstanding its undeniable historical roots, the bulk of the black-white wealth gap can be traced to current policies and structures that have made the wealth divide grow at an accelerating pace over the past 25 years.” (Starkman, "The $236,500 Hole…"). Individually, there are also imbalances, especially between

Yet, the minimum wage has largely stayed the same for decades. The National Employment Law Project Analysis of Consumer Price Index indicates that the value of minimum wage has consistently dropped over the years because of inflation; 1968’s hourly minimum wage of $1.60 would be $10.90 after adjusting for inflation ("Amount with Inflation"). Today’s sub-par federal minimum wage contributes to an overall decreasing quality of life for Americans. Even those that work their way up the “corporate ladder” commonly receive wages that do not allow them to make substantial headway into saving, investing, and otherwise moving towards achieving their dreams. Today’s credit-based system urges consumers to “buy now, pay later,” effectively roping many Americans into acquiring expensive big-ticket items like new cars or college tuition with the condition of debt repayment with interest, (and in many cases, the interest rates are somewhere between ridiculous and