How Things Have Changed......

[LoneLaugher]

Well, just how would you "fix" it? The 1950's were a unique period where, after WW2, The U.S. possessed 1/2 of the manufacturing capacity of the entire world. .

there are super obvious ways to instantly create 40 million new jobs and huge upward pressure on wages:

1) make liberal unions illegal. 20 millon jobs
2) eliminate liberal corporate taxes. 10 million jobs
3) make liberal budget deficits illegal so Japan and China had to buy our products not our debt. 10 million jobs
4) ship 20 millionn liberal illegals home.
5) make inflation illegal. 5 million jobs

shall I go on?

Yeah..go on. Best not to pinch a loaf.

typical liberal without IQ for substantive response!

Oh....was your teatarded list substance? I missed it.

Great math, by the way. I love well thought out plans.

dear if you disagree with anything on list please say why or admit by trying to change the subject again that you lack the IQ for it like any typical liberal would.

Bitch, I'm not interested in your dopey list. You should look for someone with lower intelligence to engage.

 

[Moonglow]

I don't know why all you negative Nelly's set around and bitch so much, are you all idle and ready to die? Has life drained from you so much that bitterness and negativity is all you have left?

 

[Freemason9]

Also, the demise of the progressive tax code due to Republican actions.

 

[Moonglow]

Also, the demise of the progressive tax code due to Republican actions.

Now that's an elaborate plan...

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Bitch, I'm not interested in your dopey list.

translation: As a liberal I lack the intelligence to respond substantively to the list.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Also, the demise of the progressive tax code due to Republican actions.

too stupid of course! Under Reagan top 1% paid 20% of all federal tax, now top 1% pays 40%.

Does a liberal know what progressive means?

see why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance?

 

[NLT]

There is a lot of discussion on these boards about income inequality and supply side economics and the safety net, etc. It's all good.

I'm interested.....genuinely so....in how others perceive reality so far as the typical middle class family experiences life in America.

As a boy, living in a very typical Upstate New York small town......I think my experience was in many ways typical of middle class life in the 1970s. Here is how I would describe it.

My father.....a WWII veteran landed a civil service job fixing office machines when I was 3. Mom never worked outside the home until I was sophomore in HS. So....on one very blue collar income....we muddled through my childhood years.

My father was able to purchase a 4 bedroom home, two vehicles, every modern appliance, food and clothing and toys and sporting goods and other "necessities" for 4 children. We had access to a military base with a hospital and other services. Going to a doctor or a dentist was never a decision made by looking at a checkbook.

We went on a vacation every summer. We visited family over Christmas break. We ate out occasionaly. We went to a movie whenever we wanted to. We helped support the ice cream man and the local bowling alley.

There was an expectation that we'd go to college and it wouldn't require loans. The old man even went to night school to get his GED because he never finished HS as a kid. Mom was there when we left for school and she was there when we got home. Our real teacher was waiting for us and stood between us and fun.

Awesome, right? All of us did, in fact, go to college. We all "made it".

We may have been the last blue collar generation to have that experience.


If you were born in the 80's to a blue collar dad........you can bet your ass that your mom worked too. In order to have those two cars and those modern appliances and even think about college....two incomes were a given.....that.....and a credit card. You got home to an empty house......nobody to make sure the homework was done. Hell.....that's the school's job!

The experience was just not the same. And.....those people still followed the human urge to procreate. So.....we are now entering our second generation of blue collar kids who don't have "the good ol' days".

Anyone besides me think this is fucked up and needs to be fixed?

I came up the same as you, military family and mom never worked outside the home.We had all we needed. How do you suggest we fix this?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

How do you suggest we fix this?

makes unions illegal again and bring back 30 million jobs!!

 

[NLT]

But.....if we "both" sincerely want to fix it....we'll work something out. We're Americans.

Really? Because all I've seen is a country that has been bitterly divided most of my life.

I did not see major divides in this country until the early 70's when the first dope smoking hippies started getting involved in politics.

 

[NLT]

How do you suggest we fix this?

makes unions illegal again and bring back 30 million jobs!!

are you high? Unions used to be great until the leftist's took them over. I used to be USW and saw everything go to shit when the democrats took over the unions.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

How do you suggest we fix this?

makes unions illegal again and bring back 30 million jobs!!

are you high? Unions used to be great until the leftist's took them over. I used to be USW and saw everything go to shit when the democrats took over the unions.

unions teach people you get ahead with violence, not with value. They were never great and so cost us 30 million jobs.

 

[NLT]

How do you suggest we fix this?

makes unions illegal again and bring back 30 million jobs!!

are you high? Unions used to be great until the leftist's took them over. I used to be USW and saw everything go to shit when the democrats took over the unions.

unions teach people you get ahead with violence, not with value. They were never great and so cost us 30 million jobs.

Sorry I misread your post

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

But.....if we "both" sincerely want to fix it....we'll work something out. We're Americans.

Really? Because all I've seen is a country that has been bitterly divided most of my life.

I did not see major divides in this country until the early 70's when the first dope smoking hippies started getting involved in politics.

there were huge divides in New Deal and when libs were spying for Stalin. There were huge divides in 1790's when it seemed liberals were taking over. In fact all of human history is the divide between Aristotle( freedom) and Plato( govt).

 

[Uncensored2008]

The story of the OP is very different from mine - I'm not saying it's false, but it is questionable.

I was born in the late 1950's - so my childhood was the 60's and 70's.

My dad is a CPA, a professional, graduate of USC. We had a 3 bedroom home with a single bath when I was very young, but upgraded to a 4 bd, 3 bath when I was about 6.

We had 1 car - so did everyone else in the neighborhood. We had a single black and white TV in the living room. Our first Color TV was about 1974. Eating out was something we did on birthdays, though my parents went out once a month by themselves We children were left alone when they went out.

Meals were good, but consisted of ground beef, pasta, potatoes, and vegetables. Many of the vegetables were grown in the yard, We got one soda a week, on Sunday after church. Steak was maybe twice a year - rich people ate steak. We had a built in pool. But we kids cleaned it, we mowed the lawns and did the weeding. When I started Jr. High, my mom went back to work, though a college graduate, she took a job as a waitress - it paid more than she could make as a legal secretary. She bought a second car, a nice one.

The life I gave my kids was a level of luxury my parents could never afford. My 5 bedroom house is actually smaller in sq ft than my parents house, but when the kids were at home, there was a time when we had 6 cars. The 75" home theater in the living room. and a TV in every other room, all connected to the HTPC. I have a pool, but I also have pool boy to maintain it. I have a gardener for the yard. My wife works, and we have a maid who comes in every 2 weeks to do the heavy cleaning. We eat steak and lobster whenever we feel like it. We eat out several times a week. We fly to Mexico to vacation in the timeshare, or to Europe to tour the castles.

My wife and I have a lifestyle way beyond anything my parents had - and they were both college graduates.

My older brother is a medical doctor, my sister a teacher. We all attended college, we all had heavy student loans to pay back afterwords; This was in the 70's

I had my first job at 14, and bought a car the day I was 16. From 16 on I paid all my own bills, clothes, you name it. My kids all had cars, but I bought every one of them (4) their first car. I paid for the first two years of college, then they were on their own. 3 of four have bachelors, one is working on her masters.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The story of the OP is very different from mine - I'm not saying it's false, but it is questionable.

I was born in the late 1950's - so my childhood was the 60's and 70's.

My dad is a CPA, a professional, graduate of USC. We had a 3 bedroom home with a single bath when I was very young, but upgraded to a 4 bd, 3 bath when I was about 6.

We had 1 car - so did everyone else in the neighborhood. We had a single black and white TV in the living room. Our first Color TV was about 1974. Eating out was something we did on birthdays, though my parents went out once a month by themselves We children were left alone when they went out.

Meals were good, but consisted of ground beef, pasta, potatoes, and vegetables. Many of the vegetables were grown in the yard, We got one soda a week, on Sunday after church. Steak was maybe twice a year - rich people ate steak. We had a built in pool. But we kids cleaned it, we mowed the lawns and did the weeding. When I started Jr. High, my mom went back to work, though a college graduate, she took a job as a waitress - it paid more than she could make as a legal secretary. She bought a second car, a nice one.

The life I gave my kids was a level of luxury my parents could never afford. My 5 bedroom house is actually smaller in sq ft than my parents house, but when the kids were at home, there was a time when we had 6 cars. The 75" home theater in the living room. and a TV in every other room, all connected to the HTPC. I have a pool, but I also have pool boy to maintain it. I have a gardener for the yard. My wife works, and we have a maid who comes in every 2 weeks to do the heavy cleaning. We eat steak and lobster whenever we feel like it. We eat out several times a week. We fly to Mexico to vacation in the timeshare, or to Europe to tour the castles.

My wife and I have a lifestyle way beyond anything my parents had - and they were both college graduates.

My older brother is a medical doctor, my sister a teacher. We all attended college, we all had heavy student loans to pay back afterwords; This was in the 70's

I had my first job at 14, and bought a car the day I was 16. From 16 on I paid all my own bills, clothes, you name it. My kids all had cars, but I bought every one of them (4) their first car. I paid for the first two years of college, then they were on their own. 3 of four have bachelors, one is working on her masters.

well by any standards it seems today its much harder for kids to get a leg up in this economy. Something like 30% of those between 25-30 are living at home.

Its mostly liberalism that is at fault for harmnig the economy, but also parents can afford spoil their little darlings these days and often do. Its almost like putting them on welfare.

 

[Uncensored2008]

well by any standards it seems today its much harder for kids to get a leg up in this economy. Something like 30% of those between 25-30 are living at home.

Its mostly liberalism that is at fault for harmnig the economy, but also parents can afford spoil their little darlings these days and often do. Its almost like putting them on welfare.

Maybe, but maybe it's just that expectations have changed?

The generation of my parents had far lower expectations of material comforts and luxuries than my generation did. They were far more thrifty than we are. Have you EVER saved a jar of buttons so that you could fix clothes? I'm doubting it. If a pair of pants rips or I lose a button, the garment goes in the trash. Not when I was a kid, my mom mended everything.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

well by any standards it seems today its much harder for kids to get a leg up in this economy. Something like 30% of those between 25-30 are living at home.

Its mostly liberalism that is at fault for harmnig the economy, but also parents can afford spoil their little darlings these days and often do. Its almost like putting them on welfare.

Maybe, but maybe it's just that expectations have changed?

The generation of my parents had far lower expectations of material comforts and luxuries than my generation did. They were far more thrifty than we are. Have you EVER saved a jar of buttons so that you could fix clothes? I'm doubting it. If a pair of pants rips or I lose a button, the garment goes in the trash. Not when I was a kid, my mom mended everything.

well they were poor during depression and war so never fully accepted having security, did still save string and buttons, mostly had one car families etc, but point is generations of technological progress should have made the average work week 20 hours by now as predicted.

Its like H.Ross Perot said, " The [liberal] govt can waste all the money that there is.

 

[Uncensored2008]

well they were poor during depression and war so never fully accepted having security, did still save string and buttons, mostly had one car families etc, but point is generations of technological progress should have made the average work week 20 hours by now as predicted.

Its like H.Ross Perot said, " The [liberal] govt can waste all the money that there is.

I'm an executive, my work week is 60+ hours.

 

[Freemason9]

Everyone has different life experiences. I don't have such fond memories of the 60's, because both of my parents worked fulltime hours and we struggled financially as a family. I rarely saw my mother--she commuted as well.

 

[DGS49]

There are two factors you are all missing:

Birth Control, and
The global economy.

Until the universal availability and acceptance of The Pill, married women were inevitably going to have a kid every couple of years throughout their child-bearing period. This meant that they were not good candidates for responsible employment (the best jobs were teacher and nurse, neither of which paid much), and she was capable of getting pregnant into her early 40's, which put a damper on her career plans.

After The Pill, families could be planned and managed. Newlyweds could plan on two incomes for a significant period of time, and that second income quickly became mandatory.

Inflation - particularly housing inflation - was fueled by the two-income households. In my area, houses that sold for 15000 in 1965 were selling for 80-100 thousand by 1975. Which made it very difficult to maintain a good lifestyle on one income.

The global economy pitted well-paid American workers with - let's be honest - minimal skills against foreign workers making a small fraction of their money, with no benefits. Even with transportation costs figured in, American manufactured goods couldn't compete, particularly if they were union-made.

The day of the uneducated, fairly lazy American factory worker (or miner or construction worker) making enough to support a family on one income are long gone, and will never return.