[JohnWhigham]

A basic house of some standard? A car?

Well, 60 years ago those were attainable relatively quickly for someone without a high school degree. Now they aren't (unless you want to live in the middle of nowhere) for someone even with a college degree. So something went awry in the meantime.

[globular-toast]

Just because something was possible doesn't mean it should always be possible. I'm not saying whether it should or shouldn't be in this case; I really don't know. But it should be obvious that in the past ~100 years people have been taking far too much from the Earth without any thought to sustainability or the future. What was common 60 years ago was not necessarily right.