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Many studies have blamed the baby boomer generation.
I tend to agree.
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio2
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe1
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it1
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion1
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it -- Billy Joel (Boomer)
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio2
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe1
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it1
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion1
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it -- Billy Joel (Boomer)
Life sure was better in 1955. I lived in a nice house for free, I never had to cook my meals or pay for my clothes. I had no car payment or debt. Life sure was a breeze.
Housing starts are at 30 year lows. That is an improvement over 2010-11, the depth of the housing crisis, when they were at 50 year lows. I am not kidding. I looked up these stats a few weeks ago and was shocked.. You don't have to take my word for it. Call up your local jurisdiction and ask how many permits were pulled between 2009 and 2012, and how did that compare to 5 years prior? 10 years?
You think the housing value issue is NOT supply and demand? Has the population been growing, or not?
The housing price problem could be alleviated if we had people like William Levitt or Fred Trump cranking out cheap, pre-fab houses for the masses using techniques they learned building soldier housing for the war.
There was little sfh construction during the Great Depression. 40% of the country's banks had gone under & 1 out of 5 were out of work. The housing market did collapse... it had been in a bubble in the 20s, most famously in Florida. Housing was cheap following that but no one had any money to build. Then during the war most material went to the war effort. After the war people had some cash and pent up demand so after the war there was a serious housing price spike and shortage until about 1949 when Levittowns started to appear. And they didn't stop appearing for half a century. In 2008 they stopped.
2008 was similar to 1929 in a number of ways that no one likes to admit.
What the housing market today looks like is what it would have looked like post WWII without that post war building boom.
Last edited by redguard57; 10-07-2016 at 10:57 PM..
The housing price problem could be alleviated if we had people like William Levitt or Fred Trump cranking out cheap, pre-fab houses for the masses using techniques they learned building soldier housing for the war.
Except in the Bay Area those houses can't be built because there is literally no land left to put them on. The Bay Area is like Manhattan Island in that respect; there's no room left to build out, only up. (And zoning ordinances restrict the latter option, though of course those could in theory be changed.) That's one of the driving factors behind crazy Bay Area housing costs. (Another is that the temperate climate is attractive to very wealthy foreign investors.)
There's plenty of housing in the US that the OP could afford. The problem is that he doesn't want to live in any of those places.
Except in the Bay Area those houses can't be built because there is literally no land left to put them on. The Bay Area is like Manhattan Island in that respect; there's no room left to build out, only up. (And zoning ordinances restrict the latter option, though of course those could in theory be changed.) That's one of the driving factors behind crazy Bay Area housing costs. (Another is that the temperate climate is attractive to very wealthy foreign investors.)
There's plenty of housing in the US that the OP could afford. The problem is that he doesn't want to live in any of those places.
Wherever you go, there you are. I agree that the Bay Area is an extreme case, in part because of its geography, but if moving was a solution, everyone would do it.
That is not the only place experiencing housing price spikes. It's happening in about half the country... generally the urban job engine half of any given state. You see people complaining in forums for all the states. Millennials complain more because their jobs often require a critical mass of people.
I come from Texas and saw it there. There is unlimited flat land in every direction from their cities and they have no compulsions about building out. That at least made affordable housing available... But it did come with a cost of a 40-80 minute commute 1-way. Driving across Houston has to be seen to be believed. The nice, safe, and accessible parts of town skyrocketed.
A big difference between 1955 and today would be the lack of a small town economy for young people. It's not that they won't move to cheaper housing areas, but there are no jobs for them there.
I see towns like that in every state. Cheap housing, yes. But the population is all old people and those who serve them. The kids graduate high school or college and never return.
Last edited by redguard57; 10-07-2016 at 11:28 PM..
The middle class has certainly taken a beating in the US over the last 40 years, less so in Canada as our private sector unionization rates are about triple yours.
The last time there was such inequity in the US was in the guilded age of the 1920s. I blame much of it on free-trade which has decimated our manufacturing sectors in US and Canada as factories head to Mexico for cheap labour. I can't stand Trump but on this point he is right.....free trade with Mexico has been a disaster for the US.
You can sum up the decline of the middle class in the US down to one very sobering statistic.........in the 1970s high paying GM was America's largest employer and today it's Walmart.....enough said.
Maybe not. I almost died from measles in 1958. I was small child but I remember one of the last polio epidemics right before the Salk vaccine became available.
GDP/capita is double.
Food costs less.
Electronics cost less.
Cars last way longer.
Polio is gone. Smallpox is gone. Measles are gone.
This.
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