Good ol days

[Cold Fusion38]

I find it odd that 50 years we could get along with just one bread winner and get along just fine. NOW we have both mom and dad working Jr may have to go to work to help the family. Intergenerational families living together just to get by, WHy!!!.. Because too few people control too much of the wealth and the bottome 50% has to beal with the cost of EVERYTHING going up. So wages stay stagnate yet costs go up WAY up. How can we live this way?

 

[chanel]

Stop spending rent money on cigarettes, IPODS, and tattoos. Problem solved. Next question?

 

[Avatar4321]

seems to me that the illusion that everything was fine 50 years ago and problematic today is the solution. Sure our society isnt as refined as it was 50 years ago. but people struggled then. Intergenerational families were quite common in the history of the world. You do what you need to do to survive.

 

[alan1]

50 years ago, how many families had more than one car? How many had a single TV, much less multiple TV's, computers, xbox, wii, etc. What was the sales tax rate in your state 50 years ago?

 

[Annie]

I find it odd that 50 years we could get along with just one bread winner and get along just fine. NOW we have both mom and dad working Jr may have to go to work to help the family. Intergenerational families living together just to get by, WHy!!!.. Because too few people control too much of the wealth and the bottome 50% has to beal with the cost of EVERYTHING going up. So wages stay stagnate yet costs go up WAY up. How can we live this way?

Check out what the middle class family had and did back in the 50's and 60's. Today? How many televisions, computers, computer and video games. Look at how often they go out to eat. Cleaning and lawn care hired help. Vacations that cost in excess of $1000 per person, sometimes 2 or more times per year. How many cars? I know my mother would freak at a monthly phone bill over $100 per month, which includes a cell, cable, and computer hook up.

Twenty year olds want what took their parents years to provide, but they don't want to wait and they don't.

If a family with an income of $40k wanted to live on that, they can, but their standard of living will be more like that of the 50's and 60's.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Avatar's observation is spot on! The desire and opportunity for providing a better lifestyle for the family after WWII coupled to the 60s rise of a new feminism drove the creation of the two-income family that worked outside of the home. Add mass consumerism and mass advertising to the above, and you have the modern American family.

 

[editec]

Fifty years ago Doctors didn't make five or ten times the median family income, either.

Neither did lawyers, accountants and other professionals.

When I was a kid one in eight mothers worked full time outside the home.

Now I'm informed the number is seven out of eight.

We are, basically getting poorer, even though in some ways (like consumer electronics and the cost of clothing and in most cases, food) some things have gone down relative to what we make.

Shelter, energy, taxes, and the incidentals (insurance, HC, legal fees, education, licensing and so forth) have gotten more expensive relative to our wages... more than enough to offset the benefits we gain from those other things we buy goig down relative to our incomes, I suspect.

 

[AllieBaba]

I find it odd that 50 years we could get along with just one bread winner and get along just fine. NOW we have both mom and dad working Jr may have to go to work to help the family. Intergenerational families living together just to get by, WHy!!!.. Because too few people control too much of the wealth and the bottome 50% has to beal with the cost of EVERYTHING going up. So wages stay stagnate yet costs go up WAY up. How can we live this way?

In the past intergenerational families were the way that people got by, that's certainly nothing new.

When you devalue traditional families with one bread winner and a stay at home parent, when you create generation of generation of people who have forgotten what it means to SAVE for the things they want, instead of accumulating credit, when you keep raising minimum wage and over-taxing small business, essentially killing off intrepreneurship and when you shut down every industry that has the potential of providing decent paying jobs for ordinary people..then you wind up with the problems you name.

It has nothing to do with rich people. It has to do with communist dumbshits who think that by destroying industry in order to bring down the wealthy, by stopping people from profiting from the resources ofthis land, and creating bigger programs to create a bigger welfare state, the world will magically become a better place.

 

[Old Rocks]

There is a disconnect here. In the early '60s, I had my first full year working in industry. While I was not a minimum wage employee, I was not making high wages for that era. I did work a lot of overtime. My father and mother bought a home that same year. It was large, very nice, if somewhat old. The cost of that home was exactly the same as my gross income for that year. That is the big differance today. The basic cost of a home, even a small fixer, is about 3 times the income for most young workers. Rent for a small apartment cost me about 1/2 of a single weeks paycheck.

The actual basics, at that time, took far less of a percentage of the paycheck than it does today.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Let's see better more well adjusted and civically responsib;e children, no NEED for a second or third car, children who PLAYED rather than are baby sat by the tele. Let's see.......Insurance WAY uo, Education WAY up, Housing WAY up, basically the cost of EVERYTHING has gone up while the adjusted income has DROPPED and you REPUGS wonder why our country is where it is. I was a latch key childe because my father worked during the day ALL DAY LONG and my mother went to school. Became even MORE of a latch key kid when she started working graveyard.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

There is a disconnect here. In the early '60s, I had my first full year working in industry. While I was not a minimum wage employee, I was not making high wages for that era. I did work a lot of overtime. My father and mother bought a home that same year. It was large, very nice, if somewhat old. The cost of that home was exactly the same as my gross income for that year. That is the big differance today. The basic cost of a home, even a small fixer, is about 3 times the income for most young workers. Rent for a small apartment cost me about 1/2 of a single weeks paycheck.

The actual basics, at that time, took far less of a percentage of the paycheck than it does today.

Basically you can get financed for 2.5X your household income. My wife and I knew we wanted about a $750 payment. We got approved for $160,000 we said no thinks and got a small "starter" house for $105,000.

 

[Zoom-boing]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac]YouTube - George Carlin Talks About "Stuff"[/ame]

 

[alan1]

Basically you can get financed for 2.5X your household income. My wife and I knew we wanted about a $750 payment. We got approved for $160,000 we said no thinks and got a small "starter" house for $105,000.

Now, why the hell would you want to be personally fiscally responsible like that?
You are obviously to stupid to be a congressman.
<yes, that was sarcasm>

 

[Cold Fusion38]

There is ONE thing that differs alot. In the 50's the average home was I think 1,000 to 1,500 sq feet npw the AVERAGE is like 2,500. Keeping up with the Jone's and being constantly told that if we don't have the BRAND NEW sports car we are less of a person is also to blame but like I said I got a 1,500 sq ft house because we could AFFORD IT. We also have two cars that are BOTH over ten years old and PAID for. The only thing that worries me is if one of the cars goes out, they both have 140,000 miles on them and I would HATE to get stuck with a major repair.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Basically you can get financed for 2.5X your household income. My wife and I knew we wanted about a $750 payment. We got approved for $160,000 we said no thinks and got a small "starter" house for $105,000.

Now, why the hell would you want to be personally fiscally responsible like that?
You are obviously to stupid to be a congressman.
<yes, that was sarcasm>

Yeah I could've has a WAY bigger kitchen and I could even have someone cooking my soup FOR me.

 

[Zoom-boing]

There is a disconnect here. In the early '60s, I had my first full year working in industry. While I was not a minimum wage employee, I was not making high wages for that era. I did work a lot of overtime. My father and mother bought a home that same year. It was large, very nice, if somewhat old. The cost of that home was exactly the same as my gross income for that year. That is the big differance today. The basic cost of a home, even a small fixer, is about 3 times the income for most young workers. Rent for a small apartment cost me about 1/2 of a single weeks paycheck.

The actual basics, at that time, took far less of a percentage of the paycheck than it does today.

Basically you can get financed for 2.5X your household income. My wife and I knew we wanted about a $750 payment. We got approved for $160,000 we said no thinks and got a small "starter" house for $105,000.

You sound like us. Bank approved us for way more than what we were comfortable paying. We looked down the road and knew that when kids came along we really wanted to be able to have me stay home with them. We opted for a smaller house, further up the road than planned. We also stayed there for longer than we planned and while I was still working full-time socked away as much as possible and paid more on the mortgage. It benefited us then, as well as when we bought this house 10 years ago.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

There is a disconnect here. In the early '60s, I had my first full year working in industry. While I was not a minimum wage employee, I was not making high wages for that era. I did work a lot of overtime. My father and mother bought a home that same year. It was large, very nice, if somewhat old. The cost of that home was exactly the same as my gross income for that year. That is the big differance today. The basic cost of a home, even a small fixer, is about 3 times the income for most young workers. Rent for a small apartment cost me about 1/2 of a single weeks paycheck.

The actual basics, at that time, took far less of a percentage of the paycheck than it does today.

Basically you can get financed for 2.5X your household income. My wife and I knew we wanted about a $750 payment. We got approved for $160,000 we said no thinks and got a small "starter" house for $105,000.

You sound like us. Bank approved us for way more than what we were comfortable paying. We looked down the road and knew that when kids came along we really wanted to be able to have me stay home with them. We opted for a smaller house, further up the road than planned. We also stayed there for longer than we planned and while I was still working full-time socked away as much as possible and paid more on the mortgage. It benefited us then, as well as when we bought this house 10 years ago.

You used you common sense rather than getting talked into something you didn't need. Once we get our house paid off we will either remodel because we really like the neighborhood or we will move to a bigger house with a bigger kitchen a famly room and theater /office room and a MUCH nicer master suite. I want to do a second floor addition above the half of the house above the garage but I thin it may be cost prohibitive.

 

[Midnight Marauder]

There is ONE thing that differs alot. In the 50's the average home was I think 1,000 to 1,500 sq feet npw the AVERAGE is like 2,500. Keeping up with the Jone's and being constantly told that if we don't have the BRAND NEW sports car we are less of a person is also to blame but like I said I got a 1,500 sq ft house because we could AFFORD IT. We also have two cars that are BOTH over ten years old and PAID for. The only thing that worries me is if one of the cars goes out, they both have 140,000 miles on them and I would HATE to get stuck with a major repair.

The TAX BURDEN differs alot. The tax burden and the cost of punitive regulation, liability issues, other legalities.... There's 20 times more piglets at the teat than there used to be. And there's tens of millions more population to boot.

 

[ba1614]

I find it odd that 50 years we could get along with just one bread winner and get along just fine. NOW we have both mom and dad working Jr may have to go to work to help the family. Intergenerational families living together just to get by, WHy!!!.. Because too few people control too much of the wealth and the bottome 50% has to beal with the cost of EVERYTHING going up. So wages stay stagnate yet costs go up WAY up. How can we live this way?

Check out what the middle class family had and did back in the 50's and 60's. Today? How many televisions, computers, computer and video games. Look at how often they go out to eat. Cleaning and lawn care hired help. Vacations that cost in excess of $1000 per person, sometimes 2 or more times per year. How many cars? I know my mother would freak at a monthly phone bill over $100 per month, which includes a cell, cable, and computer hook up.

Twenty year olds want what took their parents years to provide, but they don't want to wait and they don't.

If a family with an income of $40k wanted to live on that, they can, but their standard of living will be more like that of the 50's and 60's.

That's a lot of what I see as the root problem too Annie.

"Twenty year olds" are certainly impatient today, but there's also far too many of their parents that should know better, who are just as bad, or worse.
I truly believe that if you can't pay for it, you can't afford it, and don't "NEED" it. Aside from a home, and maybe a reasonable amount for a vehicle, there is no excuse for being in permanent debt. No, it's not easy to do, quite the opposite, but life isn't supposed to be easy.
Slow and steady will usually win the race of life. I can only hope my kids that now think I'm an asshole at times because I won't by them this or that, will eventually understand, same as I thought my dad was an asshole many times while growing up, but was eventually grateful for.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

I find it odd that 50 years we could get along with just one bread winner and get along just fine. NOW we have both mom and dad working Jr may have to go to work to help the family. Intergenerational families living together just to get by, WHy!!!.. Because too few people control too much of the wealth and the bottome 50% has to beal with the cost of EVERYTHING going up. So wages stay stagnate yet costs go up WAY up. How can we live this way?

Check out what the middle class family had and did back in the 50's and 60's. Today? How many televisions, computers, computer and video games. Look at how often they go out to eat. Cleaning and lawn care hired help. Vacations that cost in excess of $1000 per person, sometimes 2 or more times per year. How many cars? I know my mother would freak at a monthly phone bill over $100 per month, which includes a cell, cable, and computer hook up.

Twenty year olds want what took their parents years to provide, but they don't want to wait and they don't.

If a family with an income of $40k wanted to live on that, they can, but their standard of living will be more like that of the 50's and 60's.

That's a lot of what I see as the root problem too Annie.

"Twenty year olds" are certainly impatient today, but there's also far too many of their parents that should know better, who are just as bad, or worse.
I truly believe that if you can't pay for it, you can't afford it, and don't "NEED" it. Aside from a home, and maybe a reasonable amount for a vehicle, there is no excuse for being in permanent debt. No, it's not easy to do, quite the opposite, but life isn't supposed to be easy.
Slow and steady will usually win the race of life. I can only hope my kids that now think I'm an asshole at times because I won't by them this or that, will eventually understand, same as I thought my dad was an asshole many times while growing up, but was eventually grateful for.

Parents today are FAR too permisive. Buying their kids BRAND NEW CARS. EVERY electronice device man can create. The nicest cloths from ONLY the right stores. SPOILED FIG RATS if you ask me.