👉🏻 https://x.com/tgrammie2/status/2011915331460350348
👉🏻 https://nitter.net/tgrammie2/status/2011915331460350348
I’m worn out hearing people moan, “Our grandparents could buy a house on one paycheck, but now we can’t even afford rent on two!”
Yeah, maybe because Grandma wasn’t dropping half her income on $14 iced lattes and avocado toast shaped like art projects. Back then, if they wanted coffee, they boiled it at home in a dented pot. It tasted like burnt rubber and regret — but it woke you up and cleaned your pipes.
And Grandma wasn’t “out to brunch.” You think she had time for mimosas and hashtags? She was making something called whatever’s left in the fridge and feeding six people with it.
Don’t even start with Uber Eats. You think Grandpa was out here paying $38 to have a burger delivered three blocks away? Please. He grilled mystery meat on a rusted barbecue, and everyone called it dinner.
Now people cry about being broke while sitting in a house full of gadgets. Two SUVs in the driveway, six streaming services, three air fryers, and matching tattoos that cost more than their light bill. You think Grandpa had a tattoo? He did. It said “Korea, 1951,” and it came with trauma, not Instagram likes.
And the kids—Lord help us. “We can’t make ends meet, but Brayden needs the new iPhone!” No, he doesn’t. You’re handing an $1100 device to a child who still eats crayons and forgets to flush.
When we were kids, there was one phone. It hung on the wall like a family relic. The cord stretched just far enough for you to whisper secrets before someone yelled, “Get off, I need to make a call!” And guess what? We lived.
The TV? One. In the living room. With three channels and a dial that clicked like a safe. And if Dad wanted to watch bowling, you were a fan of bowling, end of story.
Now there’s a flat screen in every room, the baby’s got an iPad, the dog’s got a camera, and everyone’s wondering why they can’t afford rent. Because you’re living like rock stars on retail salaries, that’s why.
Grandpa wasn’t leasing Teslas or buying $12 smoothies called “Green Zen Awakening.” He drove a truck that coughed smoke, rattled like a storm, and smelled like oil and hard work.
They lived within their means. Whatever Grandpa brought home on Friday — that’s what they had. They weren’t keeping up with the Joneses; they were keeping the lights on.
So yeah, Grandpa bought a house on one salary. But he also didn’t have a gym membership, three delivery apps, and emotional support crystals on his nightstand. His only support system was Grandma, who told him to quit whining and mow the yard.
Nowadays, everyone’s broke, anxious, and “manifesting abundance” while ordering tacos on DoorDash for the fourth time this week.
It’s not the economy — it’s the lifestyle.
Wake up, turn off your subscriptions, make your own coffee, and maybe—just maybe—you’ll smell the truth.
Credit to original author, unknown
It's a nice screed and totally spot on in many respects except the salient causes are the economy, the fiat printing, the fraud and the disgusting system as a whole. UberEats goat's cheese and lemon-chipotle-humus infused pizzas barely rate next to the elephant in the room.
If they bought a coffee back in 1951 it would have cost ~10 cents.
I would categorize trying to pass off the destruction of the middle class as lazy people buying stupid consumables as gaslighting.
The social commentary aspects regarding "babies with Ipads" and recidivist UberEatards are spot on, but probably more of a symptom of the oppressive system and the dopamine addicts it incentivizes than in any way causative.
Stupid argument.
The average income in 1951 was $3,700.
Today's coffee is $5.00 and the average income is $66,200.00.
It's still 3 times as many coffees per average income for the 1951 hominid. How much we have been squeezed is much worse than that though I do agree. I know how much my energy bills increased since the 90's and how much less disposable income it left me with.
According to these numbers a coffee in 1951 would have been ~0.0027% of the average income and today it is ~0.0076%. To put in perspective to have a daily coffee in 1951 for a year would have cost ~1% of the average income, and to have a daily coffee today (who the hell is going to Starbucks every day anyway?) would cost ~2.8% of the average income.
That coffee costs a lot more today, but it is still just a drop in the bucket compared what is paid in taxes, estimated 34.7% for the average American accounting for federal and state taxes across income, property, sales, and vehicle ownership. In 1951, the average amount paid in taxes was only 15-20%.
Also, in 1951, the average American household spent 20-22% of their total income on food, including groceries and dining. Today the average American household only spends 10-11% of their total income on food, half as much, so blaming the inability to buy a house on coffee and avocado toast seems a bit disingenuous.
The other monthly expenditures that the average American has today that did not exist in 1951 surely do play a role, so some of those criticisms may be more valid. Gramps and Granny back in the day didn't have cable TV, cable internet, or wireless cellphone plans. But economy, inflation, etc. surely are significant factors as well.
Taxes in 1951 were not as high, factor in health care expenditures as well.
An ER visit is damn near a years avg salary. Could be why they are making us sick on purpose to exploit and bankrupt us.
Health care, insurance, rent, debt from school, etc. are all absolutely through the roof.
And the inflation rate by actual meaningful commodity numbers instead of B/S doctored CPI ranges anywhere from 2400% for WTI crude pricing to 12900% for gold's pricing in that time.
Ratio that $3,700 dollars with WTI oil's price, today's income ought be $89,577. Copper, salary should be 289,000. Silver, would be $374,000. Gold, and it's $479,000. Tin is $117,000.
Damn near every fungible commodity has outpaced income growth significantly, but no, we're getting poorer because of muh coffees. We are all getting pissed on by the Federal Reserve, and you expect us to take it as rain?
My TV time was limited to 2 hours of Saturday cartoons. I had chores, real chores starting at age 10. Feed the chickens, feed the dogs, help mom with the household chores. As I got older my chores got a little more demanding, younger brother took over my little kid chores. We did our homework at the kitchen table in the evenings. And I didn’t get paid to do chores - we were expected to help because we were a family.
I notice no one addresses the crux of my argument...
Houses were out of reach for me at $5.00 and hour income raising two children. I didn't have the newest inventions, toys, etc. I lived very meager. Eating out was a treat we did few and far between.
Back in the 50's and in the 70's when I raised children we didn't blame others for our situation. We dealt with it and moved on with our heads held high.
I didn't buy disposable diapers I used cloth diapers.
Quit the damn blaming and justifying while you have expensive vehicles and phones.
I agree with all of those statements. Part of our problem as a society though is that we have a large amount of the population that lives on credit - some of it is due to those very valid points that you listed. Some of it is due to a type of lifestyle that became a habit from childhood, kids given toys to make up for the guilt parents felt because of both parents workings or because of divorce - which skyrocketed when I was a kid. We, as a society, have a tendency to want the newest thing, as soon as possible. That’s understandable because we’re bombarded by ads all day and told that we deserve it because (insert reason here). We’ve become a throwaway society.
I do think that the restoration of the home as the most important place in society with a parent at home to tend to the family needs would be a good way to get people to focus back on relationships and not things.
And I do think kids should have age-appropriate chores as well as parents who do the chores around the house so that kids have an opportunity to learn how to grow up and take care of household “fixes” as an adult. I really think all of the above that you aptly pointed out were used as a direct assault on the home and family unit in order to bring the USA down to the point where we are right now.
My dad was a Korean War vet, he was born in 1932. He was not a boomer.
Mine too.
Kek !! 100% but..
TV was pissweak though. A modern Iphone can track your eye movements so as to adaptively learn what triggers certain behaviors, so as to better monopolize your attention. Handing a baby an Ipad and then letting the algorithm at Youtube or any social media work it's magic is like lobotomizing the child.
The 1950's in the US looked like a fucking paradise of cohesive shared culture and civic responsibility compared to this shithole. I was watching the early space program and the crowds at the launches looked so very different, they were homogeneous and had not been psi-oped into a coma yet. It was before I was born yet I was homesick for the culture I was seeing.
Back then it was so early in the ponzi scheme that all life had not been drained of colour......life was measurably better then, the Boomers just inherited it.
Edit:- Also, a Korean war vet is not a boomer.
Or ..or ...