Reply #1: If you want to get really sick, go back 40 years

[Warpy]

40 years ago I was making maybe $.50 above minimum wage. I was able to afford a one bedroom apartment, a good used car, and I had healthcare and other benefits. I was able to take vacations at the beach, although the accommodations were far from plush. I was working full time and going to college part time. I did do my own cooking.

By 1978, that was all over. We'd seen double digit inflation for years, caused by oil shocks and blamed on unions. The minimum wage had been allowed to drop far below the poverty level. Early 1978 was the watershed year for older boomers to buy that first house since interest rates were jacked up very quickly later that year.

We've had nothing but conservatives from both parties since 1969, when Nixon was sworn in. Are we any better than we were 40 years, 30 years ago?

Not unless we inherited many hundreds of millions.