When I ask for evidence, and someone else supplies it, "you wish" isn't a strong rebuttal to the evidence.
> It wasn't like this.
I kind of have to agree with you here. I think three things made a huge difference: The breakup of the extended family, the rise in medical costs, and the rise in college costs. And, maybe, the failure of the pre-college education system to prepare people for the workforce (or even for adult life).
But the 50s through 70s were a golden time, at least in the US. Everyone else was rebuilding, and we had all the industry, and so we had a ton of jobs. But it wasn't always like that.
My father was born in 1930. He tells about having to re-use thread, not because they didn't have money to buy thread, but because the thread factories had closed. They didn't know when (if ever) it was going to be different. That was the first eight years of his life. So... it wasn't always like the 50s, either.
Right. But the amount of money that could be paid in regular wages and salaries has continued on up, since the '70s, at the same rate. It just isn't, anymore. Instead, the extreme rich contrive to skim it off.
Then they hire PR experts to trick people. Very, very successfully, as you can see in this thread.
People really cling to the idea that they are doing well, and always compare their status to those further down, as they have been trained to do. Most cannot conceive of how life is for the actual upper class, or even what it would be for somebody truly middle class, if there still were any.
> It wasn't like this.
I kind of have to agree with you here. I think three things made a huge difference: The breakup of the extended family, the rise in medical costs, and the rise in college costs. And, maybe, the failure of the pre-college education system to prepare people for the workforce (or even for adult life).
But the 50s through 70s were a golden time, at least in the US. Everyone else was rebuilding, and we had all the industry, and so we had a ton of jobs. But it wasn't always like that.
My father was born in 1930. He tells about having to re-use thread, not because they didn't have money to buy thread, but because the thread factories had closed. They didn't know when (if ever) it was going to be different. That was the first eight years of his life. So... it wasn't always like the 50s, either.