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I'd like to see more than cars brought into the conversation. New cars are considerably higher quality in 2021 vs 1981. I know some people have nostalgia for old cars, but they were less safe and they broke down like crazy. I noticed that circa 2008-10 cars got a lot better.
We need a calculation that takes into account different costs of living. E..g.: housing is much more expensive. Communications cost, however, has plummeted.
I bought a certified pre owned car in 2005 with 2000 miles ,but it was just $2500 less than a new one !
I am still driving it,just one repair with the power steering,on my 4th battery and second set of tires.
A European car dealer took me aside once and said in Europe,people take better care of their car,they just dont drive,drive ,drive!
I feel lucky I am not in the market for a car,after hearing all the problems car buyers are facing.
One thing I must say,there was a time I did not own a car and I manage to save up more money.
Cars are expensive -the payment,upkeep,insurance,repair,no different than owning a home
I'd like to see more than cars brought into the conversation. New cars are considerably higher quality in 2021 vs 1981. I know some people have nostalgia for old cars, but they were less safe and they broke down like crazy. I noticed that circa 2008-10 cars got a lot better.
We need a calculation that takes into account different costs of living. E..g.: housing is much more expensive. Communications cost, however, has plummeted.
Exactly, it depends on the 'type' of spend, the key thing to show across the board with many types of products would be the dilution in quality of product (content) or product life cycle as well as increased maintenance costs.
Any product chosen say, cars, hamburgers, etc... you'd want to examine the full production cycle - life cycle chain of labor and its employ and pay versus the product cost.
IMO the vast majority of middle class (desiring to work) American have declining standards of living. I would contend due to the majority of hard products being disposable or simply designed for short life cycle. Also since USA is a mature market for many consumable type products manufacturers are frequently diluting quality or 'shrinking' unit size in standard packaging.
In some industries you have continuously rising baseline charges for a service due to cartel like behavior. Again it will vary by the realm of item you are examining.
Working-class prosperity was a 20th century bubble. The OP's father and grandfather may have done well, but what his grandfather's great-grandfather? Perhaps in the 21st century, we're reverting to a pattern more akin to that of the 19th, or even the 18th. There is small aristocracy, a "middle class" consisting of about 10%-20% of the population, and a vast peasantry underneath. It is not the case, that this scenario is somehow and odd and lamentable anomaly. Rather, the anomaly was the 20th century; unsustainable and unstable.
I remain convinced, that a stable society ought to resemble a floating iceberg: eight ninths of it is submerged below the water-line.
Is there a way for older people to make some dough with a YouTube account? I'd be happy with $75K a year in that game if I knew all the ropes. I was an auto mechanic by trade until arthritis kept me out of it. I have limited physical ability age 57.
I wish I knew how to put this PC and Internet connection of mine to profitable use.
My parents encouraged me to get an education and a White Collar "Intellectual " job exactly for this reason. The human body is not designed to physically work for 40 years, if you look at average life expectancy before 200 years ago it was age 35-45. Any functionality you retain after age 35 is a gift, and/or due to proper maintenance (similar to the cars you worked on )
You mentioned you're somewhat not interested in technology. Welp, if it wasn't for the tech geeks you, I and many others on this forum probably wouldn't be alive right now, statistically speaking.
We now sing praises of often socially awkward Men who stared into a microscope or up at the clouds every day, relentlessly and weren't very in touch with their time or the "physical" world... they wrote bizarre symbols called equations, didn't go to church and overall were just the "tech geeks" of their time. Ostracized and disregarded, until one day a huge need for what they discovered arised and eureka - We finally appreciate their hard work... a bit late (in some cases 200-300 years later) but better late than never I guess?
aiming for $75K a year for an auto mechanic working from home is a tall order,I would lower it to 35K to start,if you can clear $35k ,you are doing well.
A lot of people will try to tell you otherwise. Often using some variation of the "chained CPI" style argument to claim it's less today. But the reality is it takes more time. (And before someone starts nitpicking, I didn't specifically say they used "chained CPI" but an argument of that style.)
The reason that style argument is disingenuous is that we don't live in the past world. Sure, a poor person today might have things that even the wealthy didn't have in 1970 (cell phone for example) but that's not the issue. The issue is, relative to the overall quality of life of the era you live in, it is harder today to maintain a middle class life style than in 1970.
My family lived on a CASH economy, cash was king. We were happy without all that electronic geek crap. We enjoyed simple innocent things: going to the beach, going to the carnival, baseball games, drive-in movies, fresh green mown lawns and Sunday barbecues. Fishing, hunting, canoeing, camping, hiking. Schwinn Varsity ten-speed bicycles. Our beloved family dogs. Christmases by the warm brick hearth at grandma's. Kodak Instamatic cameras saved memories. Polaroid land cameras too. Those were the happiest days of our lives. We had a 3-br home plenty big built in 1965. In now very expensive San Mateo County, California. Television was great from the rooftop Radio Shack Archerotor antenna. 1970 America ... Who could ask for anything more!
A lot of people will try to tell you otherwise. Often using some variation of the "chained CPI" style argument to claim it's less today. But the reality is it takes more time. (And before someone starts nitpicking, I didn't specifically say they used "chained CPI" but an argument of that style.)
The reason that style argument is disingenuous is that we don't live in the past world. Sure, a poor person today might have things that even the wealthy didn't have in 1970 (cell phone for example) but that's not the issue. The issue is, relative to the overall quality of life of the era you live in, it is harder today to maintain a middle class life style than in 1970.
It's always best to A). avoid gut-feelings based arguments across economic topics B). use chained metrics as said numbers account for inflation. You can reject all that if you'd like but doing so is logically faulty.
Cold hard numbers always beat feelings. Here are a couple in 2019 CPI-U research dollars......
Is there a way for older people to make some dough with a YouTube account? I'd be happy with $75K a year in that game if I knew all the ropes.
Yes, absolutely. There is a Nigerian Prince who teaches classes on it. Just wire him $5,000 in advance. Oh, he also sells car warranties to owners of older vehicles and he buys houses for cash.
Let me know if you want his contact info.
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