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just like when it comes to job positions at our own companies everyone thinks the other guy has it so much easier then he does.
the grass always looks greener somewhere else or some other time frame.
IT AINT SO.. ask the folks who actually lived those time frames instead of you guessing and thinking what it was like and see what they thought . odds are most may think its no better or worse,only different now. different problems ,different issues but life was still full of stuggling ...
Do have a teenage girl, live in a ritzy school district, have yet to see $500 jeans on any of the kids, not sure what the heck you're talking about.
THE fashion accessory around here seems to be a $30 Vera Bradley wallet, which my daughter bought for herself, so I guess I should count myself as lucky!
I have a fashionable pre-teen and also live in an affluent district (which is always being attacked on the Chicago forums as being an area where the 16 year olds all drive BMW's to school and carry $500 purses). There are so many stereotypes out there.
I have never seen a kid wearing $500 jeans, though I once had a 6 year old girl bring her $900 Louis Vuitton purse to my daughter's birthday party. Her mom said she had purchased it for her in Paris. I spent the whole time at the party worrying we would lose the purse. I still can't believe a 6 year old had a nicer purse than me!
IT AINT SO.. ask the folks who actually lived those time frames instead of you guessing and thinking what it was like and see what they thought . odds are most may think its no better or worse,only different now. different problems ,different issues but life was still full of stuggling ...
I'm one of them---ask me. I was in college in the 50s, childhood in the 40s. Even with the war, life was idyllic then compared to what it is now. My dad had grade 4 education and worked on his feet on a factory floor all day, and even at that socioeconomic level, he earned enough to support his family with pride and dignity, and life was better then.
i have the opposite view, my mom couldnt work,my dad worked two jobs...
life was tough as kid. we had no car as a family..... by my late teens in the 60's i had a car finally. race riots in school and now i had to worry about viet nam. i was drafted at 19..... by the late 70's inflation was rampant....
the 80's it looked like war with the mid-east ... things finally eased up, i had a nice job, i started investing and boom the greatest crash the world ever seen. 26% in one day .it was amazing.. just bought my first investment property two weeks prior and when the smoke cleared in the greatest real estate market in the world new york city i was down 30%. it took me a decade to bounce back.
then came the expense of kids and schooling.
all in all im finally enjoyng life in my 50's at this point and feel this is now the best my life has ever been. even with 3 job changes and a 30% pay cut in one year..
Last edited by mathjak107; 02-05-2011 at 01:07 PM..
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
4,428 posts, read 6,510,291 times
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Originally Posted by jimhcom
A good definition of ignorance is to make assumptions of something you have no personal knowledge of.
Nice try Jim. But No. Just because I wasn't there doesn't mean it didn't study things inside out from subjective and objective sources when I was studying business. And just because you live in that time does make more aware of everything that is going on around you. Especially if you never took a critical/big picture eye/look of the situation around you.
So your point completely fall flat there.
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Sorry but I have to call you on this one. In the 50's and 60's you did not have kids wearing $500 jeans $150 tennis shoes and sporting $400 Iphones. Today it is common place. There has never been a more materialistic generation in history than the one that is coming online now. While the boomers are undeniably materialistic in their old age, when they were in their younger years they actually for the most part rejected materialism. I suppose that makes them hypocrites now, but history will judge if your generation is any less so.
Absolute crap. The cost of items are relative. It doesn't mean we are consuming any more or less than your generation did and/or that we are more materialistic than your generation.
Let me say on word: Suburbs
The modern suburbs which the Greatest Gen bought into and the boomer expanded, Is a model/way of life that is the personification of materialism. The only reason why the Suburbs have survived to any extent was because of 1. cheap oil (that was consumed in massive amounts)/transposition cost 2. We were the only economic/manufacturing player in town after WWII (ability of making money hand over fist.) These things gave us the luxury of the suburbs.
But this suburbanization is slowly ending with our economic/political decline. And younger folks are moving into/closer to cities. There are both economic reasons for this and social reasons. But the reasons don't matter. The re-urbanization of America is happening and while the cost of living is expensive up front. the city life is more sustainable in the longer term (Has worked for thousands of years folks.) Though I would like to see more people go in an opposite direction and become more into sustainable farming. Perhaps this will happen in the future. I don't know.
Plus the $500 pair of jeans? Yeah that really common place. I don't think so.
As for the Iphones. Just more TV news sensationalism/marketing time. I know of only 2 people that actually have one of those. Actually most everyone I know has many styles of phones at many different costs. Unfortunately because of how the world is working today you need at least a cell phone to get by. Plus if your a business/other professional you probably are going to need internet/and messaging on the phone to keep up with competition. Look. Here's a personal example. I currently looking at a phone (the Evo or Evo shift) that 4G technology with the capability of real fast internet service that will keep me on top of what I need to when I'm on the go. the Evo cost about $150.00 (after rebates) and the Shift cost $99.00 dollar. Yeah a little bit of coin but not $400.00. But the service is about $70.00 a month at a 2 year plan. Now that steep when you add it up. But once I have this technology I can at my will drop my internet service. That is about $50.00 a month and is not mobile. So the little extra I pay for mobility is probably better overall for me both personally and professionally. It makes sense does it not?
As for the anti-materialism attitude of the 60s. Just because some folk were in the hippie movement/counter culture Doesn't mean they didn't consume. I didn't see you Gen go back to farming/subsistence living in any kind. With the exception of a few cults. You still bought plenty of stuff. Basically as I look at it, you guys were saying one thing and completely doing another. You scream about Corporations but you still buy there $h!t in the end. In fact what about the whole disco era indulgence during the 70s? ` And the Greed is good times during the 80s? Just because you had a couple of March's on Washington to end Vietnam and had Woodstock does not mean that you were any less materialistic overall. I tell you what though the thing that will be remembered as something that you did that actually counted outside of materialistic lifestyle was the start and support of the Civil rights movement. This was the Good thing your Gen did...and.....that about it for you guys.
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I really hope you do. But I am not really sure you understand what you are up against. Turning this ship at this point will take some major battles. You see, the people who have kicked your asses and eaten your lunch do not want to give anything back. They have been planning this for many years and your prosperity is not in their plans. If you think you are playing in a game on a level field, with rules, you do not even understand what the game is.
You and I really don't have any real Idea of everything that my Gen and the Yers are going to face. No one mind can. But I got a Idea on which way to go and where we need to start working. I'm sharing my idea with others and they're sharing they're ideas back. The formulation from what I see is really starting to gear up. And I think with the avenue of the internet change is going to happen faster than a lot of folks think. So don't blink.
As for level playing field. Actually turn about is fair play. We had the uphill slope for some time (the commanding Heights.) Now we have to learn a new game where we have to be FLEXIBLE enough to accommodate raising powers while still getting the best deal for our national interests. Is that going to be easy? Hell No! But it the game we are going to have to learn. I think we will be able to do this much like Europe did.
Let me through you a curve ball here. I'm looking beyond China at this point. Yes there powerful right now. But I see a greater much stronger power coming down the pike. That would be India. It's population in comparison to china is very young overall and they are just starting to get going at this point. And the Beauty of the country is that it is a democracy that is relatively friendly to us. I think it is essential that we build a very very strong relationship with India at this point and help them build up there society/economy/standard living in general. The benefit to the U.S. I think would be phenomenal. I mean look where India is located basically it on the boarder of to countries that I would say are not our friends...Pakistan and China. Basically they would be a political/military Check to those countries. Also if we make excellent in roads to India we could get very favorable trade agreements were we can buy cheap stuff from them (in the end hurt china) and sell them expensive/high tech items (including Military)/food. Basically I see it as a win for us.
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I will give you a piece of advice though, try to learn from your elders. Each generation thinks that they are somehow endowed with greater intelligence than the previous one. They are not. The problem is by the time they realize that, the previous generation is either dead or too old to share with them what they learned.
Not really true Jim. Information is everywhere now I can look back at the history and look at past data etc. etc. So elders can share beyond the grave. The only thing we'll lose is your Gen's personal views (which may not be all that accurate of the situation at large).....though....even that is not true. For Example. As long as the CD archives exist our opinions should be available to the general public. You or I could be gone tomorrow but our thoughts remain.
As for learning/advice. I look at it like this. My major goal in learning most things it to research and learn what NOT to do. This is a very simple principle I tell/teach people I met that are willing to listen. To be successful at this they must do the research both in subjective terms and objective terms and find the answers of what not to do themselves. That is where one really learns useful things. Not just listening to wise tales that may or may not be accurate and take it as truth.
But let me say that history has shown over an over again that people do have a bad habit of not doing there research and not learning from history.
Last edited by baystater; 02-05-2011 at 06:21 PM..
This thread is now on page 15 with 146 replies. Many, but not all, have been about economics and standards of living. Let me get back to something basic: quite aside from whatever standards of living people had or didn't have, the quality of life in the 1950's was better. There were no drugs except sometimes alcohol and often tobacco (not saying these were harmless but compare them to now!) available to children and teenagers, kids could play outside, even after dark, without any fear, and it was much harder (but not impossible) for a family to get in over its head financially because there were no credit cards and home loans were not given to those who could not afford them.
$500 jeans was nothing but an exaggeration and should be seen as such, and a mature discussion w9uld move on and address the salient points.
I went to school in Lee's, with the two leather patches on the back pocket and back belt loop. I think nowadays they're called Lee Riders. My mom bought them at Penny's for about a buck and a half a pair, which is in today's dollars, about half of what they cost now. She rolled the cuffs up twice, so I could get at least two years out of them, and put them in the washer after a week, at which point the cuffs were full of gravel. I had two pairs, one to wear and one in the wash.
I want to repeat the crucial words that I mentioned earlier. My dad made enough for the family to live WITH RESPECT AND DIGNITY, even though I had only two pairs of pants, and he had only grade 4 education and an unskilled job. Respect and dignity are a lot more important than $500 jeans , and one man working one job earned enough to afford respect and dignity.
There is no "becoming" an entitlement, social security already is one. It is granted to people of certain age and work history, and I can't imagine how it is possible (or desirable) to regulate what or where they can spend it. I'd rather see my tax dollars going to someone living a healthy retirement in Mexico than someone blowing it all on a gambling addiction in the U.S.
Yes, social security isn't sustainable in its current form, so we need to make adjustments. Raise the retirement age, lower the benefit, remove the salary cap, etc. but the solution isn't to start attempting to not pay it to someone just because they are on the other side of a geographical boundary.
I don't believe he feels he HAS to, he just feels his income stream would go further in some other countries, which is certainly true. It isn't for everyone and definitely comes with a different set of challenges but there are certainly people retired overseas who are living a little higher on the hog than they would be in the U.S.
if you are talking about getting back MORE THAN YOU PUT IN, then i still assert that it is ridiculous for you to expect me to fund your retirement in another country when our own social security system is broken, and many other americans are going to be unwilling to do it when push comes to shove. that was an odd comparison about a healthy retirement in mexico vs a gambling addiction in the united states, like we have to choose between the two.
as far as the original thread, i would suspect that americans did have it better previously just because they did not have the overwhelming stress of these unsustainable debt levels, both on a personal level and a government level. previous generations were not in debt over their heads, not because they were necessarily better people, but that those levels of debt were not available to them. (which kept expectations in line with reality, something we are truly missing today!)
my father had a job that he kept all his life and never missed a day of work. now how many americans haven't been laid off and had the stress of looking for a replacement job? how many government workers are now worried about the shrinking working base funding their salaries down the road? how many people feel that their pensions are actually secure?
as well, how many students haven't stressed about what they are going to do for employment once they finish school? how many americans due to their job situation haven't had to pack up and move because of a job change or foreclosure? how many bankruptcies have people endured compared to previous generations? the numbers certainly indicate that, overall, this generation has a more difficult time than previous generations.
there was JOB SECURITY in previous generations. now we constantly have shuffling of corporations, offshoring, government contracts and government directed spending, and a massive influx of uncontrolled cheap foreign labor, and all of this affects the ability for americans to get decent paying jobs and keep them. on top of this, add the debt load and i challenge anyone to say that things are really "better" now....
anyone who is stressed out by debt levels we take on as a nation and not their own personal levels have to really take a look at where they are concentrating stress in their lives.
i have been on this planet 58 years and gov't debt has been growing on us as a nation since i first set foot on the ground. do you really think i spent my life stressing about what this country owes??????????? i may be concerned but its not anything i stress over. my personal finances are what i would stress over just like my parents did in their day... nothing changed in that respect.
i grew up in a nyc housing project , my dad was a postal worker and i got to tell you we lived paycheck to paycheck. my wife and i had two incomes at least and even though things were tight we managed to be able to save and invest. that5 was impossible in my dads day for us .
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