primitives discuss good old days; Pedro Picasso reminescences

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6699995

Oh my.

The orange marmalade primitive:

marmar  (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 08:19 AM
Original message
 
My grandfather supported a wife and 8 children on one autoworker's salary..... 

..... and they didn't exactly live the high life, but they didn't go without anything they needed either, and actually got quite a few of the things they wanted as well. And the family did this incurring little debt.

Michael Moore referenced this in "Capitalism: A Love Story", talking about his own childhood.

But I, a GenXer, had two parents who worked, both of whom earned "middle-class" wages, and I was an only child. I got the things I needed and wanted too, but there's NO WAY my parents could have managed eight children, and probably not more than 2.

Now when my younger cousins hear my mother and her siblings talk about one parent supporting a family of 10, they absolutely don't believe it.

What the hell happened? Have real wages lagged inflation that badly, or have our expectations of what constitutes a "good life" gotten that warped, or both?

Taxes--and not just income taxes--had a lot to do with it.

Yeah, inflation and expectations, too, but don't forget the powerful impact of taxes.

boobooday  (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 08:23 AM
Response to Original message
 
1. Wages have been stagnant for a long time

My father raised three kids on one factory worker's salary, but I was born in 1963, and by the time we were teenagers, our working class family was falling behind.

Hmmm.  That would be about the time dead ted and Tipsy O'Neill were fighting Ronald Reagan tooth-and-nail, to NOT get income tax rates adjusted for inflation, just as a few years earlier, the Incompetent One (1977-1981) vigorously fought against the same thing.  Reagan ultimately won, but it was a battle that took several years.

Ineeda  (209 posts)      Mon Oct-05-09 08:32 AM
Response to Original message
 
4. Both, but as a country we have confused our "needs" with our "wants."

The above's the primitives on Skins's island in a nutshell.

End Of The Road (754 posts)      Mon Oct-05-09 08:40 AM
Response to Original message
 
5. That era was a blip on the radar of American history

After WWII, manufacturing in the U.S. soared, I believe in large part because we didn't have alot of competition. Europe was rebuilding, and Asia was still trying to enter the 20th century. All the countries behind the Iron Curtain were a world unto themselves. There were tons of jobs, domestic products were relatively cheap in relation to wages. It was Golden (for the white folks only, of course).

But the two-worker family, struggling to get by, is more typical in our past. When we were still mostly a rural population, life was hard and everybody worked their ass off with their fingers crossed. When population moved urban for "better" jobs, Mom had to stay home to manage the household, but the KIDS went out to work to make ends meet. Even in the rising middle class, multiple generations lived in one house (variety of reasons, but still equates to multiple-incomes under the same roof). And we all know what the Great Depression was like.

There's an outstanding book called "The Way We Never Were." I think it's by Stephanie Coontz -- but I'll check and get back to you. It was a real eye opener for me.

One suspects the end of the road primitive's not for long on Skins's island.

Pedro Picasso, whose money comes from his mother; apparently he didn't marry money, as previously thought, but he has admitted to himself being descended from Old Money and Much Money (his mother, State Street):

Atman  (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 08:45 AM
Response to Original message
 
9. My FIL supported his family on a barber's pay

My wife grew up dirt poor, had to sleep in the same bed with her sister until her sister got married. He packed the wife and four kids into the station wagon and moved to Florida in the sixties, hoping to find work somehow in the booming space industry. He didn't, and wound up working as a repo man. But he taught the kids how to work your ass off and make yourself better. Three of the four managed to get into college; my wife worked while she attended community college, which I helped pay for, eventually earning her Masters at UMass -- while we raised two kids. She/we couldn't have done it without the life lessons her dad taught. We, in turn, taught our kids similarly, and after living paycheck to paycheck for years, we're finally fairly comfortable and are able to help out our kids. I'm always amazed, as I look back on our owns struggles when we were young, that my FIL raised a family working as a barber...and three of his four kids went on to earn advanced degrees. Very different than the "Buy lots of stuff!" crap kids have been taught over the last couple of decades.

The skidmarked underwear primitive, the older-middle-aged farmwife in eastern Iowa, who's sad and bitter because life didn't turn out the way she thought it should:

Skidmore  (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 08:54 AM
Response to Original message
 
11. We consumed less then and saved more. I was one of 8 too.

Who had more than one care back then who wasn't wealthy? Very few people had more than one bathroom in a house. My uncle bought his house in the 1950s for $7000, and it is now worth $250K in a rural community in the midwest. His payments were $100/mo. after passing fairly stringent criteria to get a mortgage. Whole families were raised in 3 bedroom houses--one bedroom for the parents, one for the boys, and one for the girls. Not everyone felt they needed their own suite. ANd your house wasn't a piggy bank but an investment.

There were no electronics then--teevees had tubes, not ICs. There were no VCRS, DVDs, MP3 players, etc. AM radio and black and white teevee broadcast on 3 channels was new. No computers, internet, or other associated gadgetry. We got our first TV when I was 16. We didn't have indoor plumbing until I was 12 or 13. There were not 900 flavors of one toothpaste x 5 gazillion more just like it with different labels. Fast food was a new idea.

People repaired their belongings and did not see them as disposable. They lived with thrift in mind.

You tell me what happened.

Skidmore  (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 09:33 AM
Response to Reply #14
 
17. The changes in telecommunications have greatly added to household expenditures. For years we had one rotary dial phone in our home when I was a child and we shared a party line with 5 other families. You had to be good neighbors then.

Also there has been a drastic change in food production and consumption. There is also a change in the production of clothing and consumption of those products. WHen I was a child, my mother made all of my clothing, my grandmother knitted my socks, and we got one pair of shoes each year at the beginning of the school year. You prayed your feet didn't grow during the year so they would fit. Summer was welcomed for the constant state of barefootedness that kept little feet free of too small shoes.

Yes, things may have been cheaper then, but salaries/wages were a lot smaller too. I vaguely remember when my father told my mother once that the factory he worked at were going to strike and he wanted the strike because he could make more than $125/mo. then. Our rent was only $50/mo. for a 3 bedroom house. My parents only paid for electricity and winter heating fuel. There were no airconditioners anywhere--buildings or cars. We had a well and that's where our drinking water came from. We had a burn barrel for burning trash and a compost pile for other scraps. We gardened in the summer and my mom put up large quantities of canned vegetables and jams for the wintertime. Mom baked our bread every Saturday and winter or summer, the oven was in operation. Yes, "women's work"...there was a division of labor in the family.

There have been many changes in the past 50 years, some good and some not so. Sometimes we forget how much lifestyles have changed.

raccoon  (1000+ posts)      Mon Oct-05-09 08:57 AM
Response to Original message
 
12. Both, to answer your question. Let me remind you, and many others, that expectations have been raised a lot since somebody's father/grandfather/uncle/houseboy raised a family of umpteen kids on one salary.

Houses are, in general, much larger than they were in previous decades. In the 1960's, in my neck of the woods at least, a 3-bedroom, one bathroom house was pretty much the norm. Like most of my classmates, I didn't have my own room; I shared a bedroom with a sibling.

The vast majority of high school students didn't have their own cars. In fact, very few did. Some families just had one car.

Kids wore clothes handed down from big brother/sister/cousin. They didn't get clothes and shoes because they were some bigdoings brand that they just had to have.

On prom nights, kids took the family car. They sure didn't rent out limos, and if anybody had everyone would've thought they were out of their minds.

Also, a lot of things that people take for granted now didn't exist then; microwaves, computers, AC in cars and houses, air bags in cars, etc.

So you can't compare now with then, not very well anyway.

****And yes, I know that wages have stagnated big time--mine sure have. And that lots of good-paying, benefited jobs have gone the way of the dodo.

KharmaTrain  (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 09:00 AM
Response to Original message
 
13. Easy Credit...No Money Down...No Payments Until 2011...

I think a lot of the changes in consuming and how it affected incomes relates to the rise in Credit Cards. The first ones appeared in the early 70s and acted more like a debit card. Then the banks found a neat little secret...those who revolved were easy marks...give 'em a little more rope and they'll hang a little longer. The system soon shifted that they viewed those who kept a zero balance as deadbeats. People loved the credit...get it today and worry about paying for it later and with it came the justification to raise prices as those who had more to spend (even though they really didn't) would pay more for convenience...and so the wheel kept spinning.

My parents were depression kids. I was taught if you can't afford it...actually have the money in the bank...you can't buy it. Yet many others didn't see it the same way...we became a no deposit, no return society where status trumped earnings and the corporates world of the middle class changed from that of workers and consumers to purely consumers. Technology, such as automation, replaced some of the factory jobs and unions didn't help through their own largess and inability to maintain jobs or expand their reach.

Our credit crunch is a reflection of an economy that became consumption oriented...one salary wasn't enough. When men became too expensive, more women were hired and soon they became competition in the workplace with lower wages and less benefits. When women became too expensive, then the corporates looked offshore.

To your question, there was a recently released report that showed that with inflation worked in, the average wage has fallen since 1978...people are working more and earning less. I can attest to that. The concept of defecit spending has driven this economy for the past 40 years...can it be turned back to one where earning was more important?

Wednesdays  (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 09:40 AM
Response to Original message
 
18. Both of my grandfathers were ordinary men working the auto line

One grandfather never went to high school. He worked for Ford on the assembly line, and retired in 1967, worth 1/4 million dollars. Twice a year, he'd trade in his Lincoln Town Car for another brand new one (sometimes it was a Mercury Mark VII, he liked both). We still have home movies of his travels with grandma: Las Vegas, Mexico, Hawaii. They never went to Europe, but they paid for my sister's month-long tour of France, Belgium, Holland and England when she was in high school.

I don't know the net worth of the other grandfather, but I do know that when he retired in 1966, he owned two houses (one by a lake), a boat, and two cars (unusual at the time). Both were brand-spanking new, and one was a Dodge convertible that my grandma used to drive us grandkids around for fun. Their main house included a basement remodeled into a complete recreation room that had a fully-stocked bar and pool table.

Neither of my grandmothers worked full-time; the first grandmother never worked at all. The second grandmother worked part-time as a dental assistant, mostly to keep from getting bored. My father attended a private Catholic high school, and my mother was sent to a private college. Both my parents' college expenses were all paid for up-front by my grandparents, right up until my father received his master's degree.

Romulox (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 10:43 AM
Response to Original message
 
25. Your fellow "progressives" have worked hard to bring down manufacturing wages

Then they come on to the internets and post things like "Only a Scion gives me the head room I need!" And you're supposed to congratulate them on not giving a **** about you or your family.

The grouchy old primitive:

NNN0LHI  (1000+ posts)      Mon Oct-05-09 10:50 AM
Response to Reply #25
 
26. Best one I heard here was the US automakers palette of colors was too limited to choose from 

So for that they happily cut their fellow workers throats. And their own in the long run.

But being on an anonymous board I can't automatically blame that on my fellow "progressives", because it could have been a dip shit of any political persuasion posting that tripe here.

Romulox (1000+ posts)        Mon Oct-05-09 10:53 AM
Response to Reply #26
 
27. How about: "Do I HAVE to support workers to be a 'liberal'"?

"Do I HAVE to support women's rights to be a 'liberal'"?

"Do I HAVE to support gay rights to be a 'liberal'"?

"Do I HAVE to oppose racial discrimination to be a 'liberal'"?

"Do I HAVE to support free speech to be a 'liberal'"?

[The Village Idiot]

Someone should expain how government and federal reserve love to inflate the dollar. I don't think they understand that at all.

A lot of the problems that they are bemoaning were caused by government and leftists running it.

And that last poster should be old that leftists do NOT support free speech, has he/she/it been paying attention?

[Karin]

Some of their commentary sounds downright conservative! 

Anyway, I wonder why Pedro felt the need to say this:

my wife worked while she attended community college, which I helped pay for,

[franksolich]

Anyway, I wonder why Pedro felt the need to say this:

Yeah, I wondered.

It's a very good thing I keep my mind flexible, to adjust to perceptions of primitives as time goes on.

I had thought Pedro Picasso's wife came from money, because it's obvious that she brings home the bacon, while Pedro Picasso brings home a 99-cent bag of pork rinds.

Well, apparently she didn't come from money.

That is, unless Pedro Picasso is lying.

So that leaves Pedro Picasso himself as the source of inherited wealth.

Pedro Picasso has admitted that his mother is Old Family and Old Money from Massachusetts, who oddly married an ethnic way below her socioeconomic status.  Pedro Picasso's late paternal ancester (his maternal ancestress has remarried) became some sort of professional--engineer, perhaps, but don't quote me on that--and they moved down to Florida, where Pedro Picasso grew up as a product of the 1960s; incessant television, suburbia, blond kid Aryana, all that.

Those are things all admitted by Pedro Picasso; I got them nowhere else but from the mouth of Pedro Picasso.

So one has to adjust the image of Pedro Picasso a little bit; his wealth comes from his mother.

Now I'm starting to look at all the other cans of worms Pedro Picasso presents.

Pedro Picasso "owns" a second home in rustic Connecticut, by a lake.

Now I'm starting to wonder if it's one of those cases where the parents bought and own such a place, and all their adult children and grandchildren just use it.  Pedro Picasso has an older brother and an older sister, as he tells us.  Since his mother is Old Family and Old Money from Massachusetts, it's possible she owned, or owns, some Connecticut real-estate too, some place to get away from the fetid stench of Boston during the summer.

But all in all, this does not deflect from the stark fact that Pedro Picasso is much more affluent than his fellow primitives.

[GOBUCKS]

Taxes--and not just income taxes--had a lot to do with it.

Yeah, inflation and expectations, too, but don't forget the powerful impact of taxes.

But even with inflation and rising taxes, people on average are far more wealthy in real terms.

I can remember, as a kid in a thoroughly average family, longing fiercely for an ant farm.
Finally, the required $2.95 was raised.

Today, the same average kid longs just as fiercely for a $400 video game console, and nearly always gets it.

Inflation accounts for some of that, and the profligate use of credit cards may be a factor, but those things aside,
the overall level of real prosperity has never been higher.

[AllosaursRus]

Between the gubmint, increased housing costs, labor unions, taxes, (city, state, and federal) and inflation do to the feds spending more than they take in, then selling the debt to the chicoms, the average family has to have 2 breadwinners in order to get by and put a little away for old age. No way in hell can you do that and have 8 crumb crunchers!

[The Village Idiot]

I can remember, as a kid in a thoroughly average family, longing fiercely for an ant farm.
Finally, the required $2.95 was raised.

Today, the same average kid longs just as fiercely for a $400 video game console, and nearly always gets it.

You can get an ant farm at the dollar store now. Its full of green stuff that tunnels can be dug into and its edible to the ants.

My brothers adopted kids got one and he put in different kinds of ants and apparently the big ant ate the little ones.

[GOBUCKS]

You can get an ant farm at the dollar store now. Its full of green stuff that tunnels can be dug into and its edible to the ants.

My brothers adopted kids got one and he put in different kinds of ants and apparently the big ant ate the little ones.

Mine came with a coupon you sent in, and they mailed your ants. I still remember mine arriving during a cold snap, all dead. So
we mailed the dead ones back, and eventually got a shipment of healthy ants. They were fascinating, although they never built
the intricate tunnels, rooms, and secret passages like the drawing on the box.

It's funny how memories like that from childhood stick with you.

[The Village Idiot]

Mine came with a coupon you sent in, and they mailed your ants. I still remember mine arriving during a cold snap, all dead. So
we mailed the dead ones back, and eventually got a shipment of healthy ants. They were fascinating, although they never built
the intricate tunnels, rooms, and secret passages like the drawing on the box.

It's funny how memories like that from childhood stick with you.

These said we could buy ants but it wasn't as cheap as you'd think. No shortage of ants out here.

[Karin]

Wonder if Pedro was my neighbor?  I lived on a lake in CT from '95 to '08. 

[franksolich]

Wonder if Pedro was my neighbor?  I lived on a lake in CT from '95 to '08. 

Well, if you saw a tall blond glum saturnine sullen "artist" running around, at your time in his 40s, that was perhaps him.

Pedro Picasso lives in a town that boasts a Powerball Lottery winner, but I don't think it was him.

[USA4ME]

There's something about primitives waxing nostalgic about a time when people worked hard and expected to make their own way in life, as though they have any relationship to those type of ethics while wanting the gov't to hand them everything on a silver platter, that just doesn't add up.

.

[The Village Idiot]

Well, if you saw a tall blond glum saturnine sullen "artist" running around, at your time in his 40s, that was perhaps him.

Pedro Picasso lives in a town that boasts a Powerball Lottery winner, but I don't think it was him.

We don't have Powerball in Texas, we have MegaBall. If I win the big'un I will definitely spring for new smilies and maybe even create a new layout theme.