Here is my 2 cents
5. I think there are more economical classes today then there was in the 50's. In California in the 50's it only required one parent to work a full time job to own a house, a car or two have the little extras and raise their kids. In California in 2011 it requires both parents to pull in $60k a year to accomplish the same feat. There are bills we pay today that eats up our income that was unimaginable in the 50's. Cable, internet, multiple cell phone bills, inflated insurance on the cars, home and medical for the family.
4. I don't know if this is true but when I was in high school from 89-93 my parents used to tell me that in their days without a high school diploma you worked on an assembly line, with a high school diploma you ran a gas station and with a college degree your possibilities were endless. I think it is pretty much the opposite effect these days. If you get your bachelors or masters you are 4-8 years behind in work experience and you are already in the hole with student loans. Today's young adult might be less educated but it doesn't mean they are dumber.
3. We pay for water. What is wrong with the stuff from the tap? 90% of the worlds population would kill for our tap water. Bottomline is natural and organic is a profitable business. Exercise machines and gym memberships cost a lot of money. But I have always said that more people have died on the treadmill than they have in the line of a buffet.
2. Crime. Don't put yourself in harms way and avoid wrong place, wrong time situations. Don't be out driving on the road sober or not on a Saturday @ 2:30am. Avoid the ATM machine at night. Don't associate yourself with the wrong crowd. Nobody gets raped or murdered on their way to work or taking their family to the movies in a nice area. It always happens on their way home from a party, club or bar.
1. I remember creating a thread a couple of years ago asking you fellow posters which decade had the best music. Of course most people pick the music from their generation they grew up in. I picked the 90's as being the best decade for music simply because of the variety of good music. In the 60's, 70's and 80's they all had good music but the Genres were limited. In the 90's you had top artists of all genres from all kinds of rock, rap, r&b, grunge, various kinds of metal, gothic, punk, all kinds of alternative, pop, electronic, dance, house and so on. No other decade gave its listeners a larger spectrum of choices to listen to. Of course an assist goes to earlier decades of music because the 90's used a lot of sampling and musical influence. If you are a fan of all kinds of music from all of the recent decades then no decade can match up to the 90's as far as top 100 bands or artists from that decade.
5. I think there are more economical classes today then there was in the 50's. In California in the 50's it only required one parent to work a full time job to own a house, a car or two have the little extras and raise their kids. In California in 2011 it requires both parents to pull in $60k a year to accomplish the same feat. There are bills we pay today that eats up our income that was unimaginable in the 50's. Cable, internet, multiple cell phone bills, inflated insurance on the cars, home and medical for the family.
4. I don't know if this is true but when I was in high school from 89-93 my parents used to tell me that in their days without a high school diploma you worked on an assembly line, with a high school diploma you ran a gas station and with a college degree your possibilities were endless. I think it is pretty much the opposite effect these days. If you get your bachelors or masters you are 4-8 years behind in work experience and you are already in the hole with student loans. Today's young adult might be less educated but it doesn't mean they are dumber.
3. We pay for water. What is wrong with the stuff from the tap? 90% of the worlds population would kill for our tap water. Bottomline is natural and organic is a profitable business. Exercise machines and gym memberships cost a lot of money. But I have always said that more people have died on the treadmill than they have in the line of a buffet.
2. Crime. Don't put yourself in harms way and avoid wrong place, wrong time situations. Don't be out driving on the road sober or not on a Saturday @ 2:30am. Avoid the ATM machine at night. Don't associate yourself with the wrong crowd. Nobody gets raped or murdered on their way to work or taking their family to the movies in a nice area. It always happens on their way home from a party, club or bar.
1. I remember creating a thread a couple of years ago asking you fellow posters which decade had the best music. Of course most people pick the music from their generation they grew up in. I picked the 90's as being the best decade for music simply because of the variety of good music. In the 60's, 70's and 80's they all had good music but the Genres were limited. In the 90's you had top artists of all genres from all kinds of rock, rap, r&b, grunge, various kinds of metal, gothic, punk, all kinds of alternative, pop, electronic, dance, house and so on. No other decade gave its listeners a larger spectrum of choices to listen to. Of course an assist goes to earlier decades of music because the 90's used a lot of sampling and musical influence. If you are a fan of all kinds of music from all of the recent decades then no decade can match up to the 90's as far as top 100 bands or artists from that decade.
Would you believe that I lost my wallet on a mall and this guy still calls me to bring it back to me, although i have my cc and couple of cash. There are still good Samaritan out there though we dont appreciate it because we conentrate on negative things. All in all, world is a much better place to live now back on the days when most you guys were just a teenager.
Meanwhile, the quality of education has been going up for the past 40 years, with children scoring higher in reading and mathematics. That's not just in the U.S. -- it's worldwide. Graduation rates, too, are on an upward trend. So by the sheer numbers, we are actively creating useful members of society at an increasing rate, and if we continue onward, we might someday see as much as 200 percent of the population with high school diplomas. (Ed.: Can somebody double-check the math on that one?)
Total fucking bullshit. If anyone thinks that the quality of high school education has gone up in the last 40 years in this country, they are complete fools. We are
graduating kids that can barely read or write, and the US is getting destroyed in math and science compared to India and China.
When I was in grad school, some of my classes I was the only white guy, the rest were all Indians and Asians.
Total fucking bullshit. If anyone thinks that the quality of high school education has gone up in the last 40 years in this country, they are complete fools. We are
graduating kids that can barely read or write, and the US is getting destroyed in math and science compared to India and China.
When I was in grad school, some of my classes I was the only white guy, the rest were all Indians and Asians.
music is the least important factor. Crime, cost of living, etc. is what this is about. Life in 1955 would seem good to me ( as a teenager). I'm not saying I'm a teenager now, I'm 47 yo, I'm saying being born around 1940 works for me, historically....I don't want to go back much beyond that year....I could deal with not having TV as a given, ( or Color TV), no computer, cell phones, automatic transmissions....and gain some intangible stuff.....not much before 1955 for me, though.
5. As has already been pointed out today, there are far more "necessity" expenses now which didn't exist in the 50s. New computer/laptop every x number of years, cable TV, internet, data plans on your cell phone, etc. The comparisons aren't really valid.
4. I don't know if people today are getting dumber, but they are getting less competent...IMO because everything is readily available to them. Back in the day, if you wanted to write a paper for school, you'd have to drag your ass to the library, grab the 25-pound encyclopedia sets off the shelf and dig through them to find what you were looking for. Now, you can find information on anything you want with a few clicks, and I think that's part of the reason kids growing up in this generation feel such a sense of entitlement. They're used to having whatever they want given to them within a matter of minutes. But that means they also really don't know how to put in the time to do a job right. Hell, when I go to a sandwich shop and place an order, I'm far more surprised if the kid working behind the counter gets it right than when he gets it wrong.
3. "All we're saying is that we're not at the disastrous nadir of some long downward trend."
Uhh, check out how the rates for youth obesity and type 2 diabetes have skyrocketed in the US in recent years. It isn't so much an outbreak as it is an epedemic. The preservatives inside today's processed foods aren't exactly healthy for you. And one reason people ate shitty food in the 50s was because they didn't know it was unhealthy. Hell, same with smoking...wasn't it only in the late 70s that smoking was determined to be a cause of cancer and the surgeon general's warning started appearing on packs of cigarettes? People back then didn't have the nutritional information available to them that they do today.
2. Sort of the same argument as No. 3, but was crime documented the same way in the 50s as it is today? Back then, it was all done via paperwork...a lot of which probably wound up getting lost or destroyed. But did offenses like DUIs or computer hacking even exist in the 50s? And many crimes probably weren't solved back then the same way they could be today. Methods like DNA testing, facial recognition databases, etc weren't available. Basically, in order to be convicted of a crime, you pretty much had to either confess on your own or be caught in the act of doing it. Otherwise, it was difficult for a DA to prove beyond a doubt that you did it. Not so today.
1. Actually agree with the author on this one. Every single decade has their own versions of lovey dovey crap. Justin Bieber is nothing more than a modern version of "sugar sugar." And I'm sure some teens 10 years from now will still enjoy listening to that. I listen to XM radio and if I drive around long enough, I can find at least one song from each decade station that I dig. To each his own, I guess.
4. I don't know if people today are getting dumber, but they are getting less competent...IMO because everything is readily available to them. Back in the day, if you wanted to write a paper for school, you'd have to drag your ass to the library, grab the 25-pound encyclopedia sets off the shelf and dig through them to find what you were looking for. Now, you can find information on anything you want with a few clicks, and I think that's part of the reason kids growing up in this generation feel such a sense of entitlement. They're used to having whatever they want given to them within a matter of minutes. But that means they also really don't know how to put in the time to do a job right. Hell, when I go to a sandwich shop and place an order, I'm far more surprised if the kid working behind the counter gets it right than when he gets it wrong.
3. "All we're saying is that we're not at the disastrous nadir of some long downward trend."
Uhh, check out how the rates for youth obesity and type 2 diabetes have skyrocketed in the US in recent years. It isn't so much an outbreak as it is an epedemic. The preservatives inside today's processed foods aren't exactly healthy for you. And one reason people ate shitty food in the 50s was because they didn't know it was unhealthy. Hell, same with smoking...wasn't it only in the late 70s that smoking was determined to be a cause of cancer and the surgeon general's warning started appearing on packs of cigarettes? People back then didn't have the nutritional information available to them that they do today.
2. Sort of the same argument as No. 3, but was crime documented the same way in the 50s as it is today? Back then, it was all done via paperwork...a lot of which probably wound up getting lost or destroyed. But did offenses like DUIs or computer hacking even exist in the 50s? And many crimes probably weren't solved back then the same way they could be today. Methods like DNA testing, facial recognition databases, etc weren't available. Basically, in order to be convicted of a crime, you pretty much had to either confess on your own or be caught in the act of doing it. Otherwise, it was difficult for a DA to prove beyond a doubt that you did it. Not so today.
1. Actually agree with the author on this one. Every single decade has their own versions of lovey dovey crap. Justin Bieber is nothing more than a modern version of "sugar sugar." And I'm sure some teens 10 years from now will still enjoy listening to that. I listen to XM radio and if I drive around long enough, I can find at least one song from each decade station that I dig. To each his own, I guess.
On #5 everything is more expensive, I agree, with this. I watched Let's make a Deal from the late 60s a while ago and it's amazing how much a stove, refrigerator, and washer and driers were back then. They were almost the same price as they are now which is very expensive considering what people made over 40 years ago.
the 50's- 60's would have been better overall, IMO !
stats can easily be manipulated to lie.
I see 1955 ( or so) as in "Happy Days" . Mom doesn't have to work, don't need two cars, crime had to be lower, technology will always increase so your TV set will be better.
I'd take 1955 life myself !
stats can easily be manipulated to lie.
I see 1955 ( or so) as in "Happy Days" . Mom doesn't have to work, don't need two cars, crime had to be lower, technology will always increase so your TV set will be better.
I'd take 1955 life myself !
