Your examples of TVs and game systems hit close to my experience. There’s the stereotype of the ‘high tech redneck’ who lives in a run-down trailer with a big-screen TV, or drives a truck where “the wipers don’t work and the horn don’t blow, but there ain’t nothin’ wrong with the radio”. I see time and again people who are much more well-off saying things like “why didn’t they just save their money?” or tsking about how poor people spend their tax refund on stuff like that as soon as they get the check.
Thing is, they work hard all year, and that’s the only time that they have free money to spend. That one thing they buy - that’s it - that’s all they get. For the entire year. The rest of the year, all the money is going to bills or repairs or one financial crisis after another. And if they don’t spend it right away, something will come up (medical bill, car breakdown, hours cut at work, etc.) and they’ll get nothing at all.
Sure some people are bad with money, but they tend to have much higher incomes, yet still be living paycheck-to-paycheck. Poor people know how to make every dollar count, they have to. And they also know the pain of use it or lose it. They just don’t have enough income to ever get ahead by savings. It’s just forever catching up, and if you can afford one nice thing per year, you better get it while you can.
Also, there’s a meme I saw on FB about how people using food stamps may be shopping and wearing designer/expensive clothes but does anyone stop to think they got them from a thrift-shop?
You know, it doesn’t matter if he truly believes this, or if his “rags to riches” story isn’t quite true (I honestly don’t know), the fact that he’s choosing this line, versus the usual entrepreneur “anyone can do it!” is important.
Because this statement is the truth. People work harder and smarter every fucking day.
Though, it could be argued that The American Dream is well named, because by definition, dreams aren’t fucking real.
Also, it’s very context free… just a bunch of charts. No real explanation for what did happen in 1971… As a historian, that drives me up a wall. CONTEXT IS KING!!!
There’s a data point! Probably true of a lot of families around that time, that they were starting to pay off mortgages that they took out in the 50s.
Overall, I’m pretty confident there is some historian who has done a study on what happened that year that caused such a major shift in the economy… but I’m just a cultural historian, so any one I’ve read talking about the 70s is from a cultural POV rather than an economic one.
Less about us, and more about how suddenly everyone who supports things like “corporate freedom” and “right to work” reacts when it’s the “wrong” people being hurt.
I know, I’ve always been a watcher of people than a watcher of money. But I’m fairly certain some of it may’ve had to do with cars - where they’re made, what they’re made of and what fuels them.
Probably true of a lot of families around that time, that they were starting to pay off mortgages that they took out in the 50s.