[quote=pri_dk]
BG’s points are hardly “hogwash” – the personal financial habits of the lower and middle classes have changed, and not for the better. People don’t save and people buy stupid, unnecessary things more than they did thirty years ago. We can blame some of it on exploitation by creditors, marketing, etc. but, in the end, it is the individual that chooses to use credit to buy shiny rims for their car.[/quote]
You’ll note that I didn’t copy her entire comment. Some of it was insightful. But some of it was obviously influenced by her ideological disdain for current consumerism. The parts that I think are hogwash:
“middle-class families in 1975 lived a VERY spartan lifestyle compared to MC families of today”.
Keep in mind she didn’t say lower class, she said middle class. No references to the poor. I think there is some pretty strong evidence with regards to the poor, however, over that same period, the gap between those that have, and those that don’t has been pretty consistenly widening. Today, the bottom half of the population (income and asset wise) controls only 2.5% of the total wealth in this country. I have a recollection of statistics indicating that in 1980 that number was closer to 10%. (That 10% could be wrong, I’ll find the time to verify shortly.)
I grew up in a middle class neighborhood, the schools i went to were a mixture of lower-middle class to a very small minortiy of upper middle class. (There were a handful of “rich” people.) Times were different then. We didn’t have cable or flat screen TVs. But the vast majority of my friends had color TVs. (My family didn’t have one until AFTER I graduated from high school in 1973.) They drove new cars. Some of them had their new cars repossessed. At least 1/2 of the mothers of my peer group worked some out of the home, as mine did, 3 or 4 days a week. Was it as lavish a lifestyle as my kids grew up with? Relatively so. Mine grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood, with new cars and cell phones and flat screen TVs. Although my kids didn’t have any of those things, and neither did their parents. I drive a 12 year old car, havent had a new car since 1994. I’ve had a cell phone for work for two decades, but my wife didn’t have one until probably 8 or 9 years ago. And the flat screen TV? We got one last year. First one.
“There were no real “standards” to graduate from a public HS – the “teacher’s favorites” and “jocks” graduated doing almost no work and with a bad attendance record. There was no afterschool care.”
Of course there were standards. Otherwise I couldn’t have known people that flunked out. Were they standard across all districts? I have no idea. But in the SD city school there were certainly standards that were maintained in my middle class high school. I knew a dozen kids who had to take summer school AFTER graduation in order to get their diploma. And a handful more that didn’t get theirs. I don’t know much about teacher’s favorites. But I do know about jocks. We had to take the exact same coursework, the same tests, the same attendance requirements. We did get to miss some classes on game or meet days in order to get to a 3:00 game sometimes. And the star athletes? Same thing. I wasn’t one of them. But my wombmate was. So I pretty much know how the stars were treated first hand. No shoddy attendance allowed. No missed homework. (And to dispel another myth, college was no different. I’m sure there are situations where star athletes got special treatment, but that doesn’t mean all of them did. My brother didn’t. The most special thing he ever got was a good referral for a job doing contruction clean-up. At minimum wage. That he got paid for only if he worked. No special treatment by professors, no waivers on tests. And he was a star. The best player on the 2nd most popular campus sport, team MVP, league MVP, honorable mention all-american. On campus, that wouldn’t get him more than a phone number from a cute girl. Not even a cup of coffee.)
“There were no health or dental plans in place for children.”
In the context of the discussion about the middle class, I’m not sure what this refers to. We had medical insurance. Most everyone did. Policies looked different than they do today, but it wasn’t any worse coverage. True on the dental insurance. As a practical matter, that was invented in the ’80s.
The title IX stuff, i agree. No idea how that fits into the discussion.
“Divorced and unwed dads never got custody of their children, even if the mom was a flake, drug addict, prostitute or all three. Blah Blah Blah”
Highly exaggerated, she’s describing 1955, not 1975. But in general, it’s correct that father’s rights have expanded over the last 35 years. But again, I have no idea how this fits into the argument that she’s making. Even accepting it as absolute truth, I’m not sure how it’s the least bit supportive of the thesis that today’s middle class is different than the middle class of 1975.
And just to be clear, I am not disputing that today’s middle class is different from that of 1975. Or even that past rampant consumerism is a significant factor in today’s bleak economy. Just that the facts that she’s presented are either inaccurate, broad generalizations without evidence, or simply not supportive of her thesis.
