The Millennial Democracy

For more than half a century, the term 'American Dream' has been indelibly associated with home ownership; typically of the suburban, white-picket-fence variety. While the early years of this 'Dream' were historically reserved for white, heterosexual, married Americans with a college-educated male breadwinner and a stay-at-home mother tending to their two or three children in a single-family dwelling with a car parked in the driveway, in the decades since this rigid picture of American life has thankfully loosened and become more inclusive in both reality and the popular imagination. That said, not only is the goal of homeownership and generational wealth-creation within middle and working-class families still woefully underserving people of color, particularly the black community, but the ability to buy into the housing market at all is increasingly out of reach for current and upcoming would-be homeowners of all backgrounds.  If this reality is to change, we need to t...

In the midst of America's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, our nation struggled with disruptions and bottlenecks in various supply chains to a degree not seen in most of our lifetimes. Construction materials, computer chips, automotive parts, a variety of foodstuffs and more all were either in short supply, having difficulty getting where they needed to go or both. Cargo ships sat waiting for weeks before docking and unloading in ports such as Long Beach and Los Angeles, a long-problematic short-supply of truck drivers left a lag time in goods being moved and distributed, a general labor-shortage resulted in long restock times and difficulties fulfilling goods and services ordered, and all of this was taking place while demand within the American economy was near all-time highs. As a result, the cost of shipping, trucking, labor and goods in general began to see unusually rapid increases. Shipping costs from Asia to North America increased by nearly 10 times, the cost ...