[JamesBarney]

>But at least they could afford a house, right? I think a lot of people would accept living in a house without AC and more likely to catch fire. Is a house like that cheap today? No, right? It's crazy expensive as well.

I don't know many people who would rather live in a house without climate control than an apartment. A house from 1936 with no improvements is worth very little. When purchasing a house like that you're mostly buying the land.

> Car technology in the past was worse, we know that. Cars were more affordable though.

Car ownership in 1936 was far below what it is today.

> Like today then.

No, groceries were far more expensive. You can buy far more gallons of milks, eggs, lbs of ground beef, or potatoes at today's prices with todays median wage than you could in 1936 on the 1936 median wage. We have records of how much people made, and the cost of basic staples. This isn't something you need to guess about you can just google it.

> Young people are rotting at home unable to go ahead with their lives because wages nowadays are not enough to pay for a house and a family. Why do people try to deny this obvious reality? Productivity didn't benefit everyone equally and people in the past had more opportunities to build a life inside a standard that was socially acceptable.

Because 100 years of data says that this is a difference in expectations vs people being poorer. Yeah housing is more expensive than it should be due to regulation but despite that people are still much better off.

[not_alexb]

> I don't know many people who would rather live in a house without climate control than an apartment. A house from 1936 with no improvements is worth very little. When purchasing a house like that you're mostly buying the land.

Plenty in Seattle.

[lp4v4n]

>Because 100 years of data says that this is a difference in expectations vs people being poorer. Yeah housing is more expensive than it should be due to regulation but despite that people are still much better off.

People would raise a family on a single income. Boomers would work brain dead job and afford more than what a white collar worker can today, not to mention you could change careers when you wanted. Land was dirty cheap. People had multiple houses. You could find a job right out of highschool.

Nowadays people work dead end jobs to never be able to afford anything. Social security is being bankrupt by retirees who are collecting much more than they contributed and millennials and zoomers are repeatedly told they are not going to be able to retire. A degree became just a piece of paper. Any job interview has at least 3 stages. Childcare, education, etc ridiculously expensive. Houses and rent are ridiculously expensive.

>I don't know many people who would rather live in a house without climate control than an apartment. A house from 1936 with no improvements is worth very little. When purchasing a house like that you're mostly buying the land.

You're completely out of touch. Even apartments are super expensive nowadays. I would gladly live in a house without A/C.

[JamesBarney]

> You're completely out of touch. Even apartments are super expensive nowadays. I would gladly live in a house without A/C.

Why do you have so much certainty about what it's like in the US now vs 70 years ago when you're not American?

[0sdi]

This argument seems bit cheap. I'm not saying he is an expert, but you don't have to be diabetic to be expert of diabetes, for example. I would argue it might even make you biased about the subject.

[JamesBarney]

If he was making an argument from data it would be cheap. But he's making an argument from lived experience against both data and someone who lives here.

Are you saying that the data is wrong and the only way to know what it's truly like to make it in America is to not live there? That's sounds insane.