Standard of Living Erosion

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quote:
There was a time when things were fought for. Now, the violence having much been put aside, there is the economic strategy...laboring for wages to offer for trade. The cost of which growns as the supplier fancies more and greater things, as does the buyer, for which higher costs come to constrict that psychosis, bring one around to re-evaluate their labor, income, "direction", etc.
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j/k
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The theme of this topic is that somehow it is thought that the monopoly that we had on industrial clout, and the economic clout that it allowed, were to be "never ending". We stopped increasing our per capita income in 1973 or 1974 when the "Fair Trade" laws were abolished. We also produced a bunch of domestic fine things (stereos) and a lot of domestic junk (autos).

quote:
Job classes that would have given a family a solid middle class standard of living (my definition: A modest primary residence, 2 cars, and a basic vacation/secondary residence) in the 1960’s will now give a family an upper lower class or lower middle class standard of living in 2005. In an attempt to compensate for this, a family will now have both parents working, and carry additional debt load.
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Your definition is a big stretch for the entire " middle class of the 60's". I would say ...probably a home in the burbs ...one newer car ..one older car ...a one or two week vaction in a hotel/motel/camping.


Our upward mobility ..and even holding groud will continue to be eroded. There is no justification for this % of the world's population to command the % of resources that we do. It's that simple. If you want a "managed lifestyle" environment, you need to move to one of the Nordic nations where if you're poor you make 20k a year...and if you're rich ..you make 24k a year. Where your professionals only work 6 months a year due to the tax structure and your trade is totally or closely balanced. Nothing comes in ..without something going out.

If you are going to live and prosper by the sword ..you will also fall under it. We soaked up most of the world's wealth in the post WWII boom ..and we've been putting it back.

In the end ..we'll be where we deserve to be. It just isn't any fun coming off of such a high. None of us can perceive it as such since it typically began before we were born and we didn't know any better. Now we look at a more normalized existance as "lacking" since we have no understanding of the accident of being the only intact economy at 100% industrial and aggriculatural production for the world that was blown to crap.
 
quote:
Originally posted by JHZR2:
The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the average joe, rich or poor is geting DUMBER! I think there is little else than that.
JMH
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Well said except I would put the "poor" (many times..but not always) in the dumber catagory.

We all have the ability to make choices with respect to our financial future. Bill Gates driving a '67 Pickup Truck comes to mind (yea..bad example..he probably has spent a million bucks on the truck
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Don't get me started on when you loose your job and have no money bc you are paying on overpriced cars. I'll hand 'ya a tissue-boo-hoo.
 
quote:
Originally posted by OMCWankel:

There has been steady erosion in the standard of living in the USA, in my opinion, in the last 40 years. Job classes that would have given a family a solid middle class standard of living (my definition: A modest primary residence, 2 cars, and a basic vacation/secondary residence) in the 1960’s will now give a family an upper lower class or lower middle class standard of living in 2005. In an attempt to compensate for this, a family will now have both parents working, and carry additional debt load.
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I'm sorry, but your wrong, I think it's peoples priorities that are F'd up.

People nickle and dime theirselves to death. Hope many debt ridden folks have 3 color TV's all with VCR's or DVD players. 2 computers, pay for cable with the extra channels or Sattalite TV. Cell phones, a couple of cars, with upgraded sterios, stupid spinner rims, yada yada yada.

How many folks are putting 500 miles a week on their cars running back and forth to work, out to the mall, over to walmart (and buying more needless crap) dropping the kids off here and there.

All of these things add expense to the bottom line. Cut out some of the useless stuff and I think folks could live really fine on 1 paycheck, with the other paycheck being banked for retirement, vacation, other assests and whatnot.

How about quit looking at the system and have those folks take a look at themselves.

BTW, when you buy a $14.99 CD how much of that really goes to the Artist? Food for thought

fruit.gif
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ugly3:
The buying power of the “average” worker is higher today than it has ever been. The academic types have studied this time and again and come to the same conclusion, it is excessive spending that requires two people to work in a family.

Your parents and grandparents had a 1500 square foot house, maybe 2 cars if they were lucky, no summer home, etc.

Today we all “need” an SUV, a boat, two cars, a pickup truck, a 4000 square foot house, a summer home, kids with perfectly straight teeth, cell phones for everyone, cable TV, broadband, etc.
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You have hit the nail on the head. We take for granted what were luxuries 40 year ago, but work extra to earn them.

Cut out the materialistic excesses and you can live cheaply and happily, as your parents did.

I had a friend about 20 years ago that understood this from the first day he started work. He brown bagged his lunch, drove a cheap but perfectly functional car, recycled what he could, and saved. Married a girl who followed the same life plan. He never earned a huge amount, just a regular middle class guy. He retired before age 50 and plays golf.

I quit my job a couple of years ago and our family income dropped by more than 50%. We adjusted and live as well and happily as we ever did, with fewer of the things that ultimately we didn't need. Our kids are much happier now that we are together more. Now I work part time out of our house for very little money.

Never been wealthier in all the things that matter to my family.
 
One person's experiences can not be extrapolated upon to apply to an entire nation. Too many variables.

The topic is too complicated to go into detail here.

Perhaps an analogy will illustrate my opinions about this extremely complex subject.

Grandpa had 6 kids. He was a common laborer, seldom working a "normal" job. He worked for local farmers "doing the jobs American won't do" according to illegal alien apologists.

He never collected welfare or subsidies.

His pay was often minimum wage or slightly above it. Unavoidable in the rural part of Nebraska he lived in his entire life.

Today...... show me a laborer working at low wages that can: 1. buy a house, 2. Raise 6 kids, 3. pay for health care out of pockets 4. etc.

without relying upon government assistance.

Times HAVE change.

In my younger days the pundits proclaimed housing should be 26% of income. Now it is 1/3rd.

Ignore the blatherings of Limbaugh and other apologists for the existing class structure. Go to the Census Bureau Web site for the sordid details.

I'm stopping here. I have researched the many aspects of modern life regarding America's working poor. My research led to my desiring revolution.

For what it is worth: I have worked with the migrant workers in the fields, alongside little kids and old ladys, the people feeding all of America yet shunted aside when the rewards are distributed.

I sincerely hope that, some day, the lower classes say "screw it" and stay home. Let those grocery store shelves empty.

The lower classes will likely survive. How about you?
 
This subject is bigger than all the keyboards we have, all typing at once. The most I can add is to give my one-line advice that I offer to younger family members. Simply, "It's not what you earn, it's what you spend".
My middle-age cousin, a single mom of 3 is a perfect example.
Her ex pays quite a bit of support for her teenage sons and school-age daughter, that WILL dry-up soon. She is a Catholic school teacher, without a huge income and lives at her parent's home. She has no spending controls. Blowing $4000-$5000 a year on minivan payments PLUS insurance etc is a given. When she shops, it's ALL pre-packaged food plus the boys get a stipend for fun food...whatever. She won't bother to go to Wally's for bulk items etc. When it came time to get cell phones, she lets the boys pick out the best ones, all on a payment plan. Ok, the bill comes in...way over the expected amount from excess usuage. The one boy jumped into a pool with his, $300 added to the costs. When I point out that basic prepaid phones work for me and are "disposable" she retorts "this one was free"!!! lol
REPLACMENT computer time, top-of-the-line w/DSL or whatever. It's "easier" than repairing the old one. Stupid me has a 7 year old unit with $10 NetZero dial-up.
The older kid got to pick out his 1st car. A *** used Eclipse from a football player at school. $8000 plus needed repairs...too cheap/stupid for winter tires though...$2000 bodyshop repairs. She actually let him spend an extra $1000 for the stupid 18" wheels with Chinese tires that the owner graciously included. What do you think that car is worth a year later? $4000 max.

BTW- they go to Disneyland every year, just to make *total* jerks out of the teenage boys. (they are basicly afraid of natural bodies of water)

Enough is enough. We seem to "NEED" more stuff now, regardless of what actual income is. It takes two incomes to have a "home", the difference is that instead of a nice farm-house it's more like an econo-condo dealie. The big mistake is people want that finished house with the gold faucets and top-of-the-line kitchens etc. HELLO!!! You pay intrest and taxes on the closing cost FOREVER! You could just buy a house with a junk kitchen and put that stuff in, no tax assesor will know. My wife's kitchen is six screwed-together milk crates with 1/2 of the bar that was in the house on top. COULD we go and charge a kitchen at Homie Depot? Yes. I could even put it all in VERY cheap. The thing is we don't NEED it, it's "basicly" a luxury. So is finish flooring too. lol.

They do it to themselves. When I tried to set-up a ShareBuilder acct with the boys (presumably for Disney stock) they looked at me like I was crazy. How much do you think all that wasted dough would be making for them?

[ July 20, 2005, 07:11 AM: Message edited by: 59 Vetteman ]
 
Hey, my oldest son isn't doing too bad. He just graduated from college and got commissioned. I gave him a nice car, paid the first 6 months insurance, paid for a $800 Magellan 700 navi unit, $350 Escort radar detector, paid for a $3,000 gaming computer, he's getting set up staying in a suites type hotel with my MasterCard, getting spending money with same card, paying for gas with my Speedpass, tolls with my E-Zpass and when I go to visit I'll give him the money for a house down payment.

He's doing a lot better than me when I graduated!
 
quote:
Originally posted by obbop:
: I have worked with the migrant workers in the fields, alongside little kids and old ladys, the people feeding all of America yet shunted aside when the rewards are distributed.
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If they are not happy picking fruits and vegatables..they can go back to Mexico..where they don't get free hospitization, foodstamps, etc.
 
My wifes best friend is the perfect example of what can be done.

She came to the US from Poland, back in the pre-Solidarity days. Whatever money she had saved was confiscated by the "airport guards" on the way out of Poland. She had one suitcase with a few clothes, and had hidden $50.

She immediately went to work cleaning toilets, because that's the best job she cold get and she needed a job. In fact, she got two toilet cleaning jobs and saved money. She graduated to office cleaning jobs that paid a little better, and got a real cheap car so she could travel to more distant jobs. At the same time, she went to night school and accumulated knowledge and credentials. She leveraged that to get into nursing school and became a registered nurse. Now she had some decent money. She bought a starter home. Along the way, she found a partner and they got married. Her husband has an equally compelling story - he was a Vietnamese boat person. The commies took everything his family owned, killed his siblings and he escaped.

She wasn't done. Enrolled at Yale and became a PA (physicians assistant). He went to school and worked his way up to an engineering degree. They gave their small house to his elderly mother, who got out of Vietnam, and bought a slightly larger home.

Now they have children and live thriftily and happily, sending money back to Poland to support their extended family.

If you want to look at government statistics and say it can't be done, go ahead. You'll have to forgive some of us who see it done, and are living it ourselves.
 
I think plenty of oppurtunity is out there as long as you move along with the punches and have some luck. I have been layed off three times over my working career in three different careers. However I have moved on.

I feel very lucky everyday in this world to live in a beautiful home without fear of the world around me. I feel especially lucky to travel the world. My income swings from paying no Federal Income tax to top tier bracket year to year but I just roll with it.

I think the key is to always anticipate your next move or at least in the back of your mind. Also not to dig a hole mentally or financially if you can help it. Appreciate today and the easy life the USA has to offer.
 
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The wage for these job classes has not gone down, instead, the tax and basic expense burden on the gross wages has gone up. Inflation has been a factor, but not the biggest one. Taxes and basic expenses, both direct and indirect, are the biggest factor, in my opinion. The taxes and fees are a re-distribution of wealth from the populace to the bureaucracy, the infrastructure, the really poor, and the biggest recipient – business.

The real key in a countries ability to raise its populace standard of living is the type of jobs it uses in its exports. Forget about service jobs, bureaucracy jobs, and infrastructure jobs. These jobs just keep the country going.
The highest wage export jobs are management so keep the corporate headquarters at any cost.
The next highest wage export jobs are scientists/inventors so keep the product innovators. In decreasing rank, we have export jobs like engineer, then business infrastructure, production, and then raw materials. If you want to raise your countries standard of living with production, you have to do it on a massive scale. India is a good example – they tried production first. When that took too long, they got smart and went to business infrastructure and engineering. Now they are making standard of living progress.
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Other countries big business have studied us long enough to know how we N.Americans tick or rather have been "Molded".
They look at N.America and see that Government & Businesses keep the public ignorant, they maintain control over us from prices, sales, create preoccupation [Big business strategy example; the people blame unions], control our education, [lack of education = public lay blame on "diversions"], give less cash and more credit.
All of this has made N.Americans more self-indulgent and predictable. The government works hard to Minimize the tax protest and even harder to "minimize tax protest from big business" which makes it worth for foreign investment to come to N.Am. USA has opened the "most" doors but not to blame for opening the first door.

Now N.American BIG-business realize it is more difficult to gain maximum economic gains because of 1] self-indulgent "Predictable" population and 2]Large amounts of foreign investors that have moved in. Large-scale corporation outsource because of minimum enforcement problems in other countries. Government here is continually tightening control of variables [variables = population] and it's easier for Business to predict the population.
Since business can predict what we do and how we spend, they outsource services and purchase volume products to satisfy our indulgence...which is backfiring on how the federal government are maintaining control on BIG money, like "trillions" of dollars big money.

The banks and government are trying to simplify things for their interests by continually establishing boundaries to minimize our resistance to their changes. They continually are working their way slowly like an iceberg, slow moving but applying constant pressure to get rid of currency which they calculate will make it easier for them to control the population. When there is no more money that is when we won't need faith in each other anymore, we'll be total dependant on how money is controlled and not on actual money. N. Americans have ignored the strategy long enough that masses depend on it. Temptation is their strategy. If you don't have a your own strategy, you will be near permanently reactive and part of somebody else's strategy.

quote:
There has been steady erosion in the standard of living in the USA, in my opinion, in the last 40 years.
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Big industry is over in north america, its nearly died out and/or its moved. The demand for mass product is still here but the good paying jobs to create them are going to other countries. The demand from here is dam bursting, making openings for waves of low wage workers to migrate to the cities to fill these jobs.
The demand?...Cheap this, cheap that, low payments. No money down, no payments until 2008, doors open 9:00 am.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Al:

quote:
Originally posted by obbop:
: I have worked with the migrant workers in the fields, alongside little kids and old ladys, the people feeding all of America yet shunted aside when the rewards are distributed.
Click to expand...
If they are not happy picking fruits and vegatables..they can go back to Mexico..where they don't get free hospitization, foodstamps, etc.
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Hi Al. We have to use migrant workers or go out of business. It's actually quite expensive for us, but hard to hire locals in any significant number.

I'm not sure the actual pay rate mandated by Uncle Sam, but its somewhere between $7 and $8 per hour minimum and we have to provide housing free with all the amenities that is inspected regularly.

Little expense for these workers and you are not going to make $8 per hour for agriculture work in Mexico.

I sure wish we could hire local Americans. We wouldn't have to provide them anything.

Most of our guys are here strictly for what to them is the high wages.
 
For those who are doing even marginally well economically, I rather doubt if those folks are in a position to see those who are economically disenfranchised.

When I was driving long-haul semi I witnessed a large number of transient people, often entire families, seeking fertile ground to start anew.

It is easy to read of jobs moving off-shore, replaced by low-pay service industry jobs that too-often offer few to no benefits.

I saw a LOT of misery out there, folks.

For those ensconced within suburbia, insulated from the realities too many Americans are facing well.....

just listen to the apologists. All those displaced folks need to do is educate themselves!!!!

We all can be CEOs!!!! Movie stars!!!! We can all rise to the top!!!!

All we need then is a subservient underclass to do the grunt work at pay that does not allow one to buy a home, possess the health insurance the "better class" merits.

Of course, looking at prior societies where a large underclass served their betters....... such as the once-great Roman Empire...... well.... they "all fell down." Splat.

One example of the path America is following that, in my opinion, leads to calamity, is how we use mercenaries to fight our wars. The "elite class" seldom sends their spawn to fight overseas.... we rely upon those from the lower classes. When Rome relied upon mercenaries, the way was open for the empire to fall.

As I looked around me, at 240 rag tag swabbies steaming up the Saigon River, I saw the dregs of American society. Ghetto kids, those that ran afoul of the law. There wasn't ONE child of the elites amongst us.

Bah!!!!!!!

It is difficult to convey opinions backed with data in this itty bitty space. I can't convey what I have lives, seen, experienced. Combined with an enormous amount of reading, much more than the typical American reads, I am convinced America is chock-full of "classism" and things are getting worse.

When I hear the apologists of the existing social/governments/economit/etc structures bringing up the "pull up the bootstrap, Horatio Alger" analogies I cringe at the knee-jerk rhetoric. Alger succeeded not by individual initiative but by a chance encounter with a person possessing wealth/power.

Many Americans have not witnessed the economic misery out there. The media ignores it.

Well, if things continue, the average American may witness the misery, as the lower classes decide they have nothing to lose and rebel.
 
I agree 100% obbop, but at some point, every single person has to just deal with the situation as best they can. You can either get fed up, revolt and quit, or further yourself, stay positive and live within your means. Yes, every person out there will not and can not rise to the very top. But every person out there can rise to the top of their own potential. I agree that there is a structure in place now that feeds the top at the expense of the bottom in general, but look at who America votes for!!! IMO that's where change will have to come from. If every arms bearing citizen marched on Washington, they'd get squashed like a black widow in my basement windows. This country needs to get some priorities straight and I don't think Terry Shaivo and gay marrige is at the top, but that's what the people in charge are talkin about! And they were put in office legitimatly by folks all across the US.
 
quote:
Originally posted by obbop:
For those who are doing even marginally well economically, I rather doubt if those folks are in a position to see those who are economically disenfranchised.
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You make a fatal flaw in logic there - assuming that those who disagree with you don't have your wordly wisdom. I've been among the poorest in the southern US states, but more than that, I've lived it.

When I was growing up in the projects, we had very little money. Then my father lost his job. I've been out playing then come home at meal time, to an empty table. No food in the house and no money to buy any. It never occured to me that we were poor, because we still had a roof over our head which put us way ahead of some others we knew. At first my mother would cry, until she got proactive and went begging for food. If you haven't tried it, I can confirm that ketchup sandwiches are tasty but not a well rounded diet. Couple of years back I got an echocardiogram and the doctor looked puzzled. Eventually he asked me if I had been malnourished as a child because my breastbone is an odd shape. LOL.

I could complain, but there are single and no parent children who have it worse, not to mention those born in Africa and elsewhere that have it far far worse.

My parents eventually got ahead, by making good decisions. They both started out dirt poor from broken homes. Among my family (parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, ...) I'm the only one who worked part time jobs in high school and went on to college. I'm not smarter than them in a book sense, but they made their choices and live the consequences.

So you see, been there, done that. When I see a person, I see the sum of that persons life decisions.

I try hard to not assume that people with different viewpoints are uninformed. We are all the result of an accumulation of large and small decisions that bring us to where we are, with no two people alike. Vive la Difference.
 
How much of this would be an issue if real estate weren't as expensive as it is? How expensive would real estate be if you honestly had to pony up a 10-20% down payment for your mortgage with no under-the-table help from parents, inheritances, etc.?

Naturally once one is settled in a town, they want all new housing projects up for approval to have more floor space and a higher valuation so the existing townspeople pay less than their fair share of taxes. All kids can go to the same schools and the city water is just as good no matter where one tastes it. Propose affordable housing and all of a sudden the streets or the sewer "can't take it".

The roughest years for young couples are the first locked into their fixed rate/payment mortgages before they've gotten 20 years worth of 3% annual raises. Inflation could even hit 5%-- if 40% of one's income goes to the mortgage it's manageable with 3% raises.

Yes I'm paying on my house... but my mediocre yet serviceable used cars I own 100%.
 
Weve built our society on debt. If you want a big house then buy it and finance it. If you want a car then heres some low rate financing. There are people that have over 50 credit cards.

Housing is too high because people who shouldnt be buying houses are buying houses and access to debt lets them do it.

Our original poster suggested standard of living being a house and 2 cars in the garage and big ticket items. And yet now people will have 3 different kinds of playstations and $2000 in games to play for them. We have computers and computer rooms for them. We have vcrs, tvs, dvd players, surround sound systems. 200 channels on cable. And everyone has a $50 per month cell phone.

Im not old and my parents werent poor and yet when I was growing up we had 1 black and white tv and that was it. Of course my parents could afford a nice house because they werent spending money on the modern accessories people "think" they need.

There are kids running around thinking they are deprived and poor if they dont have $200 Nike shoes like all the other kids. They talk about their parents like they are pigs if the parents dont provide them with what they want.

I heard a kid the other day griping because his parents bought him a brand spanking new Jeep Liberty. I know for a fact that his Liberty is 25% of the value of his parents home and he feels deprived. Hes made plans to drive it 5 years through college and get another car. He doesnt like it. He and his sister are going to private college and the parents spent $120,000 in sending them to college and $40,000 buying them vehicles and they live in a house worth $80,000.

People are spoiled and television helps convince them they are underprivelaged.

You put spoiled people together with an attitude of being underprivelaged and you have volatility waiting to happen.

Our country demands that our politicians, governments, businesses, and citizens go into debt to afford a lifestyle that is not wise. During the years that we balanced the budget in the late 90s the news organizations ran stories every night on poor kids starving, and potholes in roads, and problems encountered from lack of spending.

People in this country dont want money. We encourage them to spend it and get rid of it and then spend more of it than they have. Debt is a thief of money and if you spend money then you leave the keys to your kingdom in the hands of a thief.

Over the long term consumption is going to hurt this country far more than terrorists. Honestly, we need a homeland security department for economic health because our most dangerous enemy is the greed of our citizens. Weve forgotten inflation. Weve forgotten the horror of a falling dollar. Weve forgotten modesty. And when Modesty leaves the building pride cometh and historically thats when things fall apart.

Happy Motoring All,

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Bugshu
 
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