There was a time, not so long ago, that America was a fantastic place to grow up and live in. Back in the late 60's, a man was easily able to support a wife and child. Decent jobs were plentiful. There were all of those hamburger"flipper" jobs, but those were meant as part-time "starter jobs" for semi-working teens, and NEVER intended as jobs to completely support ones self. Rent was dirt cheap, and ranch style houses were selling for less than $15,000. If you didn't mind getting your hands dirty, and working up a little elbow grease. you could buy a house for under $10 K. BUT, that was before the boomer yuppies started buying houses. Food... for $20, they could get 3 or 4 bags of groceries. AND, gas was only .25 cents/gallon. Cars were incredibly easy to work on. Not only that , but cars were well built... and a bumper was made of steel and meant to absorb a light bump without destroying the whole plastic "bumper." But, that was before the gov't became involved in demanding ever increasing mileage/gallon. Now, however, in order to get ahead, it takes BOTH husband and wife. Rent, even for a one bedroom has sky-rocketed. Most places in America, the avg rent for a 1 bedroom apt is a minimum of $950/mo. , and that is not in the best of neighborhoods. Buying a house today almost always requires 2 people, both working FULL TIME. Food ? Oh my heavens. The price of a decent sized beef roast is now near $20 USD. To buy a grocery cart full of groceries your talking $200 plus. As mentioned above, cars are now mostly made of plastic. Just down the street from me is an auto repair shop. During the daytime, they park wrecked cars on the street and I see that those plastic "bumpers" are not even held in place by metal . They are attached by tiny plastic clips. Not only that , but the car is controlled by a computer which takes special knowledge and special equipment to work on. Today, cars are required to have catalytic converters and thieves steal them during the night to get at the precious metals. Cost to replace a cat ? $1,500 plus. Heck, even to do a once simple thing like replace the spark plugs you need to remove many other engine components. On and on it goes, ever downward.
Women were shoved into the workforce because being a homemaker is "so unsatisfying," thus doubling the average household income, which drove up the cost of real estate (and other goods), thus forcing single-wage-earner households to make tough decisions. This is not a slight at women holding jobs...I'm talking pure economics. Rents are skyrocketing simply because of supply/demand. I guess investors failed to take illegal immigration into account when they were looking at demographic trends. Regarding the quality of vehicles...I recall when very few cars hit 100,000 on the odometer. Now it's a minimum expected life. My truck "only" has 140,000 on it. So things weren't always that good. Nor would they that bad now if we did not have saboteurs in elected office.
All of us have seen the changes, but, very unfortunately, none of us can do a thing about those changes. We think, or may think, the country has gone to "H", but in reality, it's just changes that most of us don't like. Everything costs much more than many years ago. For some, that "cost" don't bother them at all, but for others..............
Hello Hedi, If you wouldn't mind, could you expand a bit on your post ? When you said "war", what did you mean ?
It does not take much in today's world to 'set ' people off. Trying to correct some of the issues here, could create more violence as no one wants to compromise.
Wow, here’s more evidence, just unbelievable. http://seniorsonly.club/threads/singing-the-national-anthem-is-a-form-of-protest.22948/
As far as the economics, the average (median) income of families in the United States was $5,600 in 1960, according to the Department of Commerce. So naturally the cost of food, housing, etc. was lower. I'm not sure if the "boomer/yuppies" contributed to the increase in housing costs but if so, then so what? We had to live somewhere didn't we? The women's movement created a lot of changes in family dynamic, as did the rise in divorce rates. So many factors contribute to changes in society, and as older people we generally don't like a lot of change.
I watched a commentary about Detroit and how it had the best economy per capita than any other city in the U.S. and then came the Detroit riots in ‘68. Prior to ‘68, it was the car capital of the world and is now pretty much in ruins with nary a single vehicle made in the once great city.
A big part of that was caused by unions, which drove manufacturing to "Right-to-Work" states (which Biden wanted to make illegal.)
I was gonna post that the price of a gallon of gas when I graduated high school was 37¢, and I made $1.80/hour before taxes. Other than bouts of inflation, my standard of living has consistently increased. But I did not go to college out of high school and had a early period of blue collar jobs before getting a 2 year degree at night, and I was paying a mortgage on $5/hour. So my "Wants vs Needs" was pretty well-defined. Having spent my entire career outside of DC, I've seen "excess" and am grateful to have avoided it. And of course Boomers change the cost of real estate...it's a finite supply (especially around employment centers) and we have been a big slug of the demand demographics. Wait until we die off and our homes hit the market over a short period of time. Then the "I'm upside-down on muh mortgage" whining will start when the market bottoms out. Of course, those entering the market for the first time will be able to buy real nice for real cheap.
Martin Armstrong is very pessimistic about our country. He’s the financial guy who developed an A.I., Socrates, which gave rise to his Economic Confidence Model. It predicts the U.S. will fail in 2032. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/...cs/you-have-8-6-years-left-politics-of-fools/