USA so called golden age, ca 1945 to 70s seems a myth to me?

[EgonSpengler]

Anyway, as has already been said nostalgia is fraught with cognitive bias—“golden age” kind of implies things have declined since then, but I’d rather have today’s technology and earning power than the fifties or sixties.

I was watching an old film about railroad crossing safety and not having your car get stuck on the tracks. Is that something we think about as a really credible risk today? All those little things we take for granted.

This still happens all the time today lol. Just recently a cop left a woman handcuffed in a car and left it on the tracks to be hit by a train.

Right, people's ideas about whether or not things are going well, or what the genuine problems or risks are, are so often wrong it boggles the mind (well, my mind, anyway). If you're right that train accidents are something most people don't think about anymore (and I have to admit that I don't think about it much), the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration says there are about 2 "incidents" at railroad crossings a day. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada says there were 167 accidents at crossings in 2018.

In the same way that some people may look back on a bygone era with rose-colored glasses, there are also people who think present conditions are worse than they actually are.

 

[Arwon]

A really good way not to have words put in one's mouth is to occasionally put some coherent ones there oneself to begin with.

 

[Arwon]

Also on the topic, I don't think you can call prosperity for some in a society a "golden age" when such a large and varied portion of that society was excluded, often with force. Maybe golden ages aren't real.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

I found this useful for explaining the rise and fall of empires.

 

[Narz]

but I’d rather have today’s technology and earning power than the fifties or sixties

Earning power today?

Could you buy a house w picket fence and support 2.5 kids & stay @ home wifey on your salary rn?

 

[Remorseless1]

Ruby Ridge was an entrapment job and assassination of "a little mountain racist's" son, friend, and wife.

It was a goddamned travesty of justice perpetrated by killboners and evil men. But we choose who deserves that sort of thing, often enough. Look at the Floyd memes. Same people today as then. Just a slightly different sample, I guess. But the sample is everything to them.

The FBI, local law enforcement and DOJ were using the EXACT same tactics against black and brown people during the "War on Drugs." Whitey sure does hate being treated like the coloreds.
Btw, did black people blow up a government office building or try to overrun the Capitol?

I'm not wasting any sympathy for some dumbutt gun nut playing doomsday prepper up in the woods while selling guns to fascists.

 

[Farm Boy]

Monsters everywhere. Since the way we treat black people is exactly what we are. Some people like it.

 

[Gorbles]

I too like to draw equivalences between things that may superficially seem similar, but in fact aren't.

It's funny two ways because it's actually intensely-related to the topic. The perception of what is, vs. what actually is.

 

[Farm Boy]

<yawn> Right, right.

Tell me more about the world I see out my window. I could use a nap.

 

[Joij21]

but during the “golden age” if you wanted to rule the republic from the shadows you had to haul ass.

Not true there was the military industrial complex. Energy companies, pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies, and material companies are part of this complex, not just the weapons manufacturers. All of these were bribing the US government since WW1 (as a single voice that is), before they individually bribed on their own accord because they used to be integrated as part of vertical monopolies. After the monopolies we're busted in the early 1900s they simply formed secret cartel alliances and have been bamboozling people into thinking they're unrelated ever since. Builderberg group anyone?

There was more anything because people chose it politically

No, it was simply the fact that there was no other means available for management to gain leverage over employment, so they had no choice but to give labour it's due payment as there was no other practical alternative. This all changed after Nixon's reforms, this is what finally gave management a practical tool to gain leverage to bash labour over the head.

 

[EgonSpengler]

In music, I think the US did experience a "Golden Age" in the post-war years, probably from the mid-'50s to the mid-'80s. It's hard to pin down, of course. "Rocket 88" in 1951 is frequently cited as the first rock & roll single; "Rapper's Delight" was the first rap song played on the radio, in 1979; Thriller sold 34 million copies in its first year, and subsequently reached 70 million sales worldwide, making it the best-selling album of all time. That's just to name only 3 milestones, but I think they sketch out the rough boundaries of what we could call a "Golden Age" of American music.

The '60s-'80s could be a "Second Golden Age" of American film, maybe, from the spread of 'Auteur Theory' filmmaking from Europe in the '60s to the invention of the 'blockbuster' in the 1970s.

 

[Denkt]

Earning power today?

Could you buy a house w picket fence and support 2.5 kids & stay @ home wifey on your salary rn?

I probably can, in Sweden earning power is significantly higher today than in the 70s, on other hand living like people did in the 70s is very barebones compared to today and stay home wifes probably really never been as common in Sweden as like USA.

 

[Gorbles]

<yawn> Right, right.

Tell me more about the world I see out my window. I could use a nap.

The world outside your window, like all those poor maligned moderate Republicans? Eventually sourced from an article that stated that many of said ads were accurate?

I'd clean the glass if I were you.

 

[Farm Boy]

You'd just smear **** on it again and tell me what I'm saying.

Good thing it's not your window. Either way. Something something about the pig liking it.

 

[Denkt]

Like how long would it take if you save about half your post tax salary to afford a mortgage? 2-3 years maybe?

 

[Gorbles]

You'd just smear **** on it again and tell me what I'm saying.

Using the quote function isn't telling you what you're saying. I mean, it is. But not the way you're saying it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Like how long would it take if you save about half your post tax salary to afford a mortgage? 2-3 years maybe?

When we bought the house if we tried hard enough 1-2 years.

Don't think we could do it again but an extra year or two.

Housing doubled or tripled in price since 2010 though. Paid mortage off in 10 years.

 

[amadeus]

Earning power today?

Could you buy a house w picket fence and support 2.5 kids & stay @ home wifey on your salary rn?

The problem with this scenario is trying to measure two different things: the quality, including size, and the inflation-adjusted price of housing between then and now.

Our incomes have gone up, but so too have our expectations.

 

[Farm Boy]

So price and compare a double wide then and now?

What's the percentages moving on people in section 8 programming?

Cheap fast food and groceries are up nearing 100% over two to two and a half years. But that doesn't scale with housing costs, only the ability of people to pay them, which is different.

 

[Arwon]

Earning power today?

Could you buy a house w picket fence and support 2.5 kids & stay @ home wifey on your salary rn?

Not sure that specifically moving away from cities to a detached low density dwelling is a good test of anything