Hi Steve et al,
At 02:18 PM 12/31/2001 Monday , you wrote:
>
> Arthur asks:
>
> My father in law could support a family of 2 kids and wife, afford a new
> house and car---all at a middle class salary level. This in the 1950's.
> Today, well you know. Two earners in the family and running faster and
> faster to keep up.
>
> So what happened in the last 40 to 50 years or so. It is it just the entry
> to the labour force of women thereby driving up land values (over to you
> Harry, to spell out what we should have done with the land tax that didn't
> happen).....
>
> Or was it something else. How did we go from relative ease in the late 50's
> to keen, lean and mean in the late 90's and early 2000's.? Why do we need
> two wage earner households to more or less accomplish what a one wage earner
> household accomplished in the 1950s and early 60s?
>
> Arthur Cordell
>
> The two factors I mentioned in my earlier post (automation & pop growth)
> were roaring ahead at the highest speed ever during the latter half of the
> 20thC. Global Population DOUBLED in the past 40 years. I'd have to dig upthe
> stats for Europe, UK, N. America to give rates for those areas, but the
> growth was certainly substantial even if not up to the global rate.
> Immigration accounted for much of it. I'm not claiming these are the only
> factors; but Occams Razor and common sense tell me that they are significant.
> Greider isn't a wacko, and global econ war includes competing labor rates.
>
> Steve
>
> (Happy New Year)
I believe that making comparisons between the '40s and '50s
and now is misleading because of the small matter of rising
expectations.
I, too, was raised by a middle class family in Los Angeles
in the '40s, but we lived in a small house, owned no fancy
electronic toys, computers, etc., we ate frugally, went on
camping vacations, had little jewerly, etc.
We had an auto (Plymouth, not Lexus) and that was not the
case for many of our neighbors. Public transportation was
generally available.
I'm not suggesting that life was tough. We were keeping
up with the Joneses and were satisfied that we had survived
the depression. It was a whole different mindset, without
the benefit of pervasive TV advertising.
Dennis Paull
Half Moon Bay, CA
