Verbatim, you said:

"It's about making things more affordable. One man could support his family in the 60s. House, car, college, all payed for by one man."

I told youexactlywhat a man in the 1960s provided for his family in exchange for a lifetime of hard work. That was the median. Half had less.

Guess what? You hate it. You refuse to grasp that you're consuming much, much more than that man did and that the fact you want so much more than he had is key to your perspective on "affordability".LOL, thosewerethe pleasures of democracy and capitalism, you clown. That's exactly what we were lording over the Soviets in the 1960s, and what old boomers imagine was some kind of Golden Age when they cry about how they think Mexico and China took der jerbs.

"My God, one car per household? What kind of flagrant wealth and decadence is this!"

(That, and the relatively low rate of arbitrary political executions.)

He doesn't care... It is the systems fault he is poor and can't live with out cable tv, Smart Phones, new 30k car, 2000 sqft house...

I live in the Rust Belt. This area was largely built up during the industrial boom through World War II, then the bottom fell out after the 1960s. It has strong Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, and Lebanese cultural communities, because people flooded into the area for those jobs.

What nobody mentions is that while the jobs had great pay and benefitsby the standards of manufacturing during that era, it was mostly toxic, dangerous work that Americans refused to do because they had better opportunities that paid more elsewhere. That'swhythe company was scouring the world to recruit barefoot illiterate peasants who couldn't speak English to come do it.

It's selective memory. All those factory jobs dried up mainly because of increases in productivity more than trade, which brought many prices down for the rest of us so that we could afford luxuries. They're disappearing in China, too. Manufacturing just doesn't need so many bodies anymore, and most Americans moved on to bigger and better things. You've got a subset of people living in the past, though, talking about how they knew a guy who got a job in the town factory in the 1960s and could affordeverything, in denial that "everything" back then, as honest as it was, is what we consider "poor" today. Most people would be embarrassed to live like that.

You want better, you have no choice but to do better.

Another post to rip apart. This one is gonna be easy.

By your retarded logic, the Middle class should be happy with a cheap Ford Model T. I mean why not? Who needs air conditioning, power steering, powered seats, and a radio? Anything more and you're too materialistic. A Honda Civic is way way too expensive and only rich people should be able to buy cars made in 1970+

A house with no Central Air? You're right silly me. Heat isn't needed either, why have a furnace when you can chop wood and throw it in the fire place? Amirite?

Anybody against affordable 2019 standards is a Communist and should be thrown out the country, plain and simple

You're fighting an argument nobody is making.

As I said above, it's not that peopleshouldbe happy with that. It's that they aren'tgoingto be happy with that, which is exactly why nobody should expect the mediocre job that provided it in 1960 to fulfill their dreams today.

Also, adjusted for inflation, the price of a Model T in 1908 was about $21,000.

Look how much more you get in a Toyota Corolla for the same price. It even talks to your smartphone.

Look how much more affordable nice things are.

Yet still you piss and moan.

Lol.

I never financed a thing in my life (no college loans either). Max out my retirement savings, take a few road trips per year, and still have money left over.

But wait! I've been using the same cracked screen android for 2.5 years now!?!? My car is a used 2014 beater?!?! What a horrifying way to live! Zomg!

Another easy post to rip apart. Theoretically if a Ford Model T was $500 brand new you all would suggest buying that. Let's not play dumb

Middle Class people should have access to affordable 2019 standards. That means affordable college, housing, healthcare, and transportation with SOME luxuries to new technology.

If you aren't ok with that and feel people should be content driving Ford Model Ts, living in Houses made of Straw, and using a Dailup Internet you're a Communist. That's how a Communist and Dictator think. I would NOT want you to be President, Governor, or Mayor. You're essentially Putin, Kim Jong, Stalin, and Fidel Castro

Youweretalking about 1960, but I'll agree to pretend you weren't so that we can move on.

Yes, being humble is Hitler. Makes sense.

Maybe the real problem, brah, is that the people you're talking about just aren't actually middle class.

People in 1960 were living to 1960 standards

So whats wrong with people in 2019 living to 2019 standards?

If you buy a 2014 used car with cash, that's better than a model T.

you can buy a chitty android moto cell phone once every 4 years and instead of financing (lmao btw) a new iPhone every 2 years....

You can live in insane luxury for very little cost if you just try a tiny bit.

What’s sad is people getting 6 year auto loans, or spending more that 33% of your take home on auto loan. Smh

That's perfectly fine, if you're going toactuallylive to 2019 standards.

"I wanna drop out of high school and go to work in the town factory", which was acceptable in 1960, is not 2019 standards. Both spouses usually contribute, not just because of social norms, but because families expect a higher standard of living than one income can usually provide - like 2,500 square feet+, central air, multiple cars, going out to eat regularly, things that were unrealistic in 1960.

Honestly, I'm unsure where all these allegedly middle class people who can't afford a reasonably comfortable lifestyle actually are. I know lots of people who have some trouble keeping a car on the road and generally making ends meet, but they're overwhelmingly people who do not work full-time year-round, and it's usually a combination of addiction, mental illness, and criminal history keeping them out of stable employment. (That, or other unusually poor life decisions like spending a lot of money on a graduate degree then working as a part-time adjunct professor for twenty years and complaining about it instead of moving away from academia.)

The reality is that the median household income includes college students, the elderly, etc., and doesn't reflect what a working household is like. Two adults working full-time jobs earning median pay would earn $90,000/year together. That's roughly consistent with Median Family Income data, which says that the median household with children (which would include single parents and households where one parent doesn't work or only works part-time) earns $71,000.

https://datacenter.kidscount.org/dat...,38,35/any/365

That's the middle.Nevermind getting a STEM degree or whatever. Just the ordinary jobs that most people manage to find.

As I said, I suspect the people you are describing are actually people who are down in the bottom 20-30%, but who youthinkare supposed to be middle class because you have a distorted perspective.

The only thing you are ripping apart is your intelligence...

You can buy 4-5 year old Camry for 12k. Will last a longer than that brand new 1970's POS and have a lot of features. Oh no it doesn't have heated seats...

Your "needs" are luxuries and you are such an entiteled ******* you can't even realize it. The only thing you can do is straw man arguments (poorly). Pretty sad you can't even beat your own arguments you are making for others.He exists and deserves brand new car every 2 years. Anything else is ridiculous to expect a 1st world person to live in... Central air is obviously the equivalent of heat and a 4 year old used car is the same thing as driving a 1980 honda civic.

Who are they blaming this time?

My first car I bought with cash outright. Was it the latest model? No. But I knew I could pay it off straight away, no debt. People putting on finance for all these extravagant cars is absurd and careless. I've heard/talked to people who have a payment plan for a phone because it's a brand new release... a fuking phone. Morons.

You don't need a brand new car, or close to the current year. I could get a car for 5k here and you'd probably think it's worth 20k. Why? Because you do your research and learn that the second-hand market for cars is a lot better especially for resale value than the money you lose buying it brand new. But if you get in a position later to buy brand new cars and not care, that's great; just don't bitch when you buy outside of your means.

According to Investopedia, the current middle class salary is between $40,500 and $122,000. You 100% can afford affordable college, housing, healthcare, and transportation with SOME luxuries on that salary. Maybe not in San Francisco or NYC, but in most of the country you can.

What are you talking about?

By the Logic ITT if a Ford Model T was $500, you'd say something along the lines of "Well they can buy a Ford T for $500. No need for air conditioning or power steering."

That's your logic, that's what you're going by. The middle class only deserves the bare minimum despite working their entire lives.

Talk about delusional.

No, the middle class doesn't deserve the bare minimum, they deserve the bare medium. They just have to be wise and decide what they really need and want and what they really don't need and want, because they can't have everything they want. I have coworkers who make similar incomes as I do and they complain about their bills and shyt. They also buy lunch every single day. I'm sure they average like $10-12 a day for lunch. While I make my lunch at home the night before or make bulk lunches on Sunday, probably averaging like $2-3 per lunch. That's like $2,000 a year wasted on lunches. Same with coffee. They go out to Starbucks almost every day while I drink my homemade coffee, saving another $3-4 dollars a day. These are simple savings people are able to do but choose not to. Why? I don't know, maybe they think they don't have enough time in the evening to prep lunch, but then they spend 7pm to 11pm watching Netflix, so...

I bought a ‘76 s30 for ~$3k in the early 2000s and now it’s easily worth ten times that

I do all maintenance myself but it’s easy because cars from that era were really basic and reliable

Every time a "stolen car" call for service goes out, our dispatch knows to automatically search for tow history on the VIN. In my county, tow companies have a time window in which they need to report all tows. At least 40% come from property management of whatever private prop. The remaining 60% are usually repos where the bank sends the tow truck and they just hook and haul.

There's a reason why those "repo" shows exist. It happens THAT often.

The problem is everyone who has "theirs" doesn't care about the rest of society that's in decline. They aren't aware that as the whole goes, so does what is considered average and above average.

Climbing a ladder that's falling down doesn't take you as high as climbing a ladder that's moving upwards. The lower and middle class are falling. I would rather continue to move forward in a country who's standard of living is improving, instead of moving forward in a country who's standard of living is falling.



Imagine what will happen over the next 20 years as automation replaces all the low end jobs that we couldn't ship over seas.

Imagine what it will be like when the entire population are vying for the same professional jobs that are still left? When you increase the supply of labor that much and the supply of jobs stays the same the wages fall. Meet the decline boys. But who cares about your future kids and the direction we are headed.

Let's argue about model Ts and the standard of living in the 60s...

Nah, people just gotta stop wasting money on new Cars and iPhones breh. That's why so many are struggling

Except the middle class can afford central air and a nice car. They just go above and beyond that typically

62% of Americans make $20/hour or less.

http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-conten...an-income1.png

http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-conten...stribution.png

You can go on about central air, saving up and buying cars cash etc all you want but this is the direction of the US and this is the future your kids are going to live in.

Crazy.

I feel pretty lucky, last car payment I made was 13 years ago for my first car. Since then I’ve only paid cash for the other 2 I’ve since bought. I am certainly nowhere near well off, very much middle class. Have had a lot of luck with very little financial emergencies

Misleading, since it includes part-time jobs held by students and retirees.

The median adult with a full-time job makes $45k. BLS provides the data, and is the source for both claims.

The fact is that two adults earning $20/hr full-time have a household income of $80k. It's more than enough to buy the median home of 2,400 square feet and live comfortably in it while saving for retirement and to help your kids with college.

This

Plus I'm going to be set by that time anyway and if I have any kids they'll figure out a way or fail

7 million? Thats pretty low. Thats 2% of the population.

I haven't had a car payment for years and I love it. I maintain it well and might give it a fresh coat of paint this summer. 0 issues with it and already approaching 105k miles.

If only these people would sacrifice their iPhones for a cheap flip phone they'd save a lot of money.

Das it man. Have had the same car I bought cash 10 years ago

if you "maintain it well" it shouldn't need a fresh coat of paint lmao