No boomers were much more likely to be plunged into a third world war. They also had something to lose, unlike me with fuck all.
They more likely to be plunged into an accidental nuclear war. We’re more likely to be plunged into ww2 part 2: electric boogaloo.
Boomers in their 20s were also hoping that WW3 wouldn’t start tomorrow.
Welllll… Neither the US nor the Soviet Union had complete lunatics running the country at the time.
I think that the multiverse exist and we’re the 1% of timelines that the cold war didnt go hot.
Imagine Stannislav Petrov tripping on a banana peel and ending up in the hospital instead of going to work and monitoring for nukes, or if Vasily Arkhipov suddenly develops caustrophobia right before that submarine mission to Cuba.
I think that the multiverse exist and we’re the 1% of timelines that the cold war didnt go hot.
Some of the most powerful people of the world work hard to get us closer.
Zoomers all have internet. Enough of them study economics or politics. There is not another Occupy Wall Street. Do all the clever people already have well-paying jobs?
Cold war?
Not not only their second home, but with a stay at home wife, three kids named Junior, a family dog, two cars, two weeks of vacation a year, and a retirement plan, all for 40 hours a week uneducated labor repairing vacuum cleaners.
Funny, most Boomers in the UK are dirt poor and live in a tiny rented terrace.
two weeks of vacation time a YEAR?? What hellworld are you yanks living in?!
I get one business week, 40 hours of vacation accumulated a year at my current job.
You know you are in deep shit when your vacation time is measured in hours.
I’m just so, so sorry.
Ha! You think some kid can afford a luxurious staircase studio on minimum wage? That’s prime real estate!
No kidding. That’s gotta be at least $2200/mo rent
Genuinely curious why progress toward a society of similar potential/qualities of the boomer gen is so beyond impossible please help
For one thing, the economic boom of the 1950s was an anomaly, largely driven by years of enforced saving during WWII, at least in America. Many consumer goods here were either rationed or unavailable during the war, but there was full employment for war production and those jobs paid well. So people were making good money and didn’t have a lot to spend it on. So they bought war bonds or just saved up. A few years after the war ended, when industry had shifted back to producing consumer goods, people had a lot of money to spend. Sales fueled more jobs and higher pay, fueling more sales etc. That was the 50s boom in a nutshell.
By 1960 all the savings had been spent and consumption was slacking off. But the business world didn’t want the boom to end, so they started handing out consumer credit like candy. Consumers also didn’t want it to end, so they eagerly bought on credit. Constantly owing money became the norm, and now the average American family carries like $15,000 in credit debt, excluding mortagages.
I think the only way we can achieve a boomer-like lifestyle for everybody will take massive changes in how we run the economy. The current system will just keep shoveling profits into the hands of a very small number of very wealthy people. Automation will keep eliminating more and more jobs - but the theoretical endpoint of that is a stat, where the economy collapses because there are too few people with incomes who can afford to buy anything. Reforming our economy before it gets to that point will be a survival issue, not a political one.
There was also a large influx of money as Europe rebuilt after WWII, but that also a one-time-thing.
Unless…
The rich pulled the wealth from the commoner and made themselves even richer. Now they want to be kings. It’s why we can’t have nice things.
The rich pulled the wealth from the commoner and made themselves even richer.
That’s been happening throughout literally all of human history. It doesn’t help answer the question of why so many people had it so good in the '50s (other posters in this thread have provided better answers.)
Boomers had the cold war to worry about though
Well then, it’s a good thing nuclear weapons aren’t a thing anymore. Phew.
