IIMT's personal anecdotes might come across as overly blackpilled, but they very much do reflect the general economic condition in a country where 65% live paycheck to paycheck and where many have to take extra jobs just to stay afloat.
Donald Trump: Criticism & Debate Thread
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IIMT's personal anecdotes might come across as overly blackpilled, but they very much do reflect the general economic condition in a country where 65% live paycheck to paycheck and where many have to take extra jobs just to stay afloat.
My wife keeps complaining about the grocery prices. And this started happenning with Trump and corona. I knew a dude who opened a gourmet grocery store in 2020. My wife says today prices in normal stores are the same of the gourmet in 2020. Which were really expensive back then.
Trump bailing out satanic Blackrock in the spring of 2020 was the major cause of the inflation we are facing to this day.
Around 60% of Americans can't afford to cover an emergency and are living paycheck to paycheck. The situation has gotten worse, but very gradually over the last several decades.
One striking stat I looked at was the Married With Children narrative in 1990 Chicago, where Al Bundy was able to raise a family with a stay at home mother on a shoe salesman's salary. I worked the numbers and that scenario turned out to be realistic back then (median home price in 1990 Chicago $106k. and his salary aroud $25k). Today that family with the wife working would just be able to rent an apartment in a bad Chicago neighborhood.
The upper quarter in the US is doing OK, and the top 10%-20% have had good appreciations in their 401k, home equity and portfolios, while the bottom 2/3 are struggling with inflation in housing, food, healthcare, education reducing their purchasing power.
We are in what is known as a K-shaped economy:
The K-shaped economy of the rich doing fine and everyone else struggling is back — and it could mean a rocky 2026
The US is once again teetering into an economy where high earners keep things afloat, and lower earners see cooling prospects.www.businessinsider.com
The important thing is that they CAN afford to spend $200+/pair of Air Jordans though. That can't be skimped.
Again, nothing new under the sun. It's always been this way. Most people have always had to have two and three jobs to stay afloat. I remember these exact same fears and conversations being had by my grandparents in the 1970's. And yet here we are chugging right along. Oh, so I know, this time the sky is falling and it's all going to collapse and we'll all be waiting in soup lines. Gen Z (and X) were just coddled too much as children and think they're special. They therefore expect too much out of life and emotionally crumble over the slightest bit of adversity.
This is laughable. Gen Z, The Most Coddled Generation, will do absolutely nothing and continue living in their parent's basement. Young Western white men of today don't have the stones for grass roots armed conflict in the form of guerilla warfare, which is what it would take for them to see any kind of large scale change in their lifetime.
Your grandmother probably didn't have to work and raised her kids, your grandfather was able to raise his family on a single income, as did your father, assuming he had a better job than your grandpa.
Your grandpa's house cost $39,000 (median home price in the US in 1975). His salary was lower too of course, but not that much lower in proportion, as home prices today are 10x higher than in 1975 on average, and 20x-30x higher in coastal/big cities. College tuition in 1975 was around $300-$400 per year, vs $14,000 at a public school for in-state residents, 40 times lower than today. Healthcare costs have gone up similarly. Food/groceries also outstripped inflation.
Also back during your grandfather's time, there were a lot more good paying blue and white collar factory/industrial jobs.
You sound just as out of touch as IIMT
I have a massive family and they are all married, none of the moms work they stay at home take care of the kids and home.
If you told a person from the 1970's how you live today they would assume you were incredibly wealthy. That house is still available today but you would never live in it, it's 3 tiny bedrooms two to a room with one single tiny bathroom a tiny kitchen and everyone in the house shared one car. They saved an entire year to take a family trip and if dad lost his job they were destitute the next week.
College is a scam now nobody is disputing that, that's a whole other topic and part of the reason why some are not doing well is because they fell for that scam seeking an easy life.
Those factory jobs you speak of would be considered unacceptable today. Those guys would come out of the factory drenched in sweat covered in filth after working their 16 hour double, half of them became alcoholics and junkies because of it. The guy sitting in the cubicle complaining that he can't pay his bills would think that job was torture slave labor.
This going back to the past and acting like things were so much better needs to stop, it's not doing anything but holding you back just trying to find blame and excuses. Society may have been better but quality of life sure as hell was not and the reason society was better had nothing to do with these things, it was because the family unit and culture mattered more. There are arguments to be made that life was easier than it is now sure but this talk that things were all rosy and it's so hard now is nothing but exaggerated delusion. The show Married with Children comes up a lot, a fictional comedy mind you where the whole premise was how they didn't even have money for food and how bad Al struggled in his garbage life, as if it's some example about how things should be. When Al lost his job on the show the family was talking about being out in the streets at the end of the month.
I'm not saying things are better now but to go back in time and use that as a crutch with the idea that it was so easy is nonsense delusion.
This isn't true of all of my parents or grandparents. Not even close. And I think that is true for many other heritage Americans as well. This isn't true for the people I grew up with either. What you describe would be lower middle class, and with a path forward to a higher management job in the factory where they sit on their butts and manage.
You are trying to compare upper middle class (more than one family trip a year today) v. the low class of the 1970's or 80's, and then come up with a 16-hour day in a sweatshop, which hasn't been true in the USA for over 80 years. Most in the 70's and 80's lived far better than what you described.
Perhaps you live in one of these states with the lightest shade of pink, YMMV if you don't. Bear mind that the figures already are out of date 2 years later, with the median home price in TX for example at $334k.
I have provided objective figures as to how things were better off economically many decades ago, it's not nostalgia, it is based on real data.
Also, the older housing stock more often than not has superior craftsmanship, with for instance solid hardwood floors instead of cheap veneer, fancy wood paneling and door frames etc.
College has only become a scam because tuition is exorbitant, and employment prospects aren't good for non-stem majors and even for the latter, no longer guarantee good high-paying jobs. Not the case even a decade or two ago.
Your perception of factory jobs are clichés. Normal shifts at entry level were already enough to get you in the middle class, and technicians, managers, engineers did very well.
The situation is not holding me back personally, I graduated from a top school with a high salary straight out of college a while back. Most of my classmates also did well.
The only thing that a person from the 70s transplanted today that would wow him would be the cheaper tech, large screen HDTV, internet etc, but he would find the rest (cost of housing, healthcare, education, food etc) totally outrageous. (He would also think that the cars today suck, and he wouldn't be wrong...)
Your dad or grandpa could buy a car like this used in good condition in college, and pay for his tuition just by working on campus part time and holding a Summer job...
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You just proved my point by calling a double in the factory a sweatshop, I cashed those checks from the plant when I was a kid at my families business in the late 90's. 16 hour days and 90 hour work weeks were common and one out of 100 became a supervisor if not less than that.
Regardless, the grasping at straws to hold on to your crutch is pretty sad.
Your personal claimed experiences mean nothing, less than nothing. You are a fake person you change who you are every other week to suit your current manipulation tactic, nothing you say about yourself personally has meaning anymore.
Perhaps you live in one of these states with the lightest shade of pink, YMMV if you don't. Bear mind that the figures already are out of date 2 years later, with the median home price in TX for example at $334k.
I have provided objective figures as to how things were better off economically many decades ago, it's not nostalgia, it is based on real data.
Also, the older housing stock more often than not has superior craftsmanship, with for instance solid hardwood floors instead of cheap veneer, fancy wood paneling and door frames etc.
College has only become a scam because tuition is exorbitant, and employment prospects aren't good for non-stem majors and even for the latter, no longer guarantee good high-paying jobs. Not the case even a decade or two ago.
Your perception of factory jobs are clichés. Normal shifts at entry level were already enough to get you in the middle class, and technicians, managers, engineers did very well.
The situation is not holding me back personally, I graduated from a top school with a high salary straight out of college a while back. Most of my classmates also did well.
The only thing that a person from the 70s transplanted today that would wow him would be the cheaper tech, large screen HDTV, internet etc, but he would find the rest (cost of housing, healthcare, education, food etc) totally outrageous. (He would also think that the cars today suck, and he wouldn't be wrong...)
Your dad or grandpa could buy a car like this used in good condition in college, and pay for his tuition just by working on campus part time and holding a Summer job...
Houses today are not the same houses the middle class were buying in the 70's they don't even build those garbage single family jack and jill bedroom one bathroom homes anymore because nobody will live in them anymore, again we're talking quality of life here and I promise you know nothing about factory jobs if you think the common man were "technicians, managers, engineers".
I don't think you actually read anything I said and if you're doing fine I don't know why you're trying so hard to give a crutch to others.
I think you're both right. Life has always been hardscrabble for the vast majority of people. To the extent that it wasn't for a few decades after World War II (when the United States had a large and relatively prosperous middle class) it's clear in hindsight that those were unique conditions brought about by the combination of Depression-era social reforms and the American economic boom in the aftermath of the war. It was a sort of artificial prosperity bubble that simply couldn't last (if only due to human nature itself).
Spot on. There's absolutely nothing to be gained by moaning about how much better things were in the past, or how much easier our fathers and grandfathers had it (funny how no one talks about how much better our pre-1900 ancestors had it, all of whom were living in world where 50% of children born didn't even make it to adulthood, and where routine infections often killed healthy adults). We live here and now. We didn't get a choice in the matter, all we can do is make the best of it. Trust God, work hard, maintain self-discipline, and make yourself useful to your fellow man. Anyone, at any time in history, who followed this simple advice has always been able to make a living for himself, and very likely could support a family as well.
This was the usual premise in a vast number of movies and sitcoms from the 80s and early 90s.
A regular working class man supporting a family, owning a home and having two cars in the driveway.
Well beyond the fact that it was fiction it's pretty telling that a theme in most of those shows were how badly the family struggled to make ends meet.
