The parent's point was we have made those strides in productivity, but the wages were denied us.
If you want to live in the paradise Keynes described you can. That’s what the financial independence, retire early subculture is about[3]. Work for 20 years and retire instead of 40 or 50. Or those people who contract half the year and spend half of it in Thailand. If we wanted to take more of our compensation in leisure we absolutely could. People choose not to. They need to keep up with the Jones.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...
Try one-eighth as much.
http://www.in2013dollars.com/1960-dollars-in-2016
> Converted amount ($100 base) $810.83
I understand that on empty roads at 3am in the middle of nowhere there are no consequences whatsoever, but generally that's a big infraction. Just watch few car crash compilations, ignoring lights is like 50% of the reason and the results are often very grim
In the US a common scenario is a private company installs the cameras for free and gets to collect most of the revenue. They adjust the yellow timing downward so that you don't have time to stop between the light turning yellow and it going to red. Then they send tickets in the mail to people who ran the light. Then if you do a study proving that they adjusted the timing downward to unsafe levels as a state sponsored scam, you get arrested and fined for "unlicensed practice of engineering".
Being Swiss, you give the American government too much credit. The government absolutely does not care about safety.