Things have changed a lot for people on the bottom rungs since the '90s, Walter. Some sympathy for the fact that bootstrapping is vastly more difficult for young people today might be a better look.
Sure, it's hard to just get by if you aren't out there hustling. The time of getting an average job with an average pension, which lets you buy a reasonable price house is over. The world is your oyster if you are willing to put in the time and have any ability to plan, organize, and work.
It's also true that many very successful people failed at business time after time before figuring it out. Fortunately, American culture doesn't look askance at people that fail at business and try again.
Covid craziness aside, that's still true. You can't do it in California, or Seattle or NYC but outside of those areas it's easily obtainable.
Most of these "homes were so cheap" anecdotes neglect to mention that you might be paying 18% interest on your cheap houses. Or they are talking about a place like NYC in the 70s. Yeah you could have gotten a house for a song in a bankrupt city suffering through the crack epidemic.
When I was young it was pretty much unheard of for people to get wealthy before 25. Now it's commonplace and unremarkable.
Source? even the most conservative people I know who went to school in the 80s/90s say they could never afford it now. I myself am trying to figure out how to pay for it without $40k grand in debt if I choose to go back.
K-12: https://www.khanacademy.org/
All free, available on the supercomputer in your pocket.
Not to mention entirely dependent on the unsupported precept that traditional teaching structures were apparently worthless - but, it's cheap to put your money where your mouth is on this: are you going to save a lot of time and money and educate your children solely via these resources?
Yet I wangled a job writing software despite a mechanical engineering job achieved without CS courses. I also know several people at Microsoft in programming jobs who had no college experience. There are tens of thousands of employers, all different. You can even start your own business doing programming, EE design, whatever.
> apparently worthless
Not at all. It's maybe a harder road, sure, but it's navigable for those who want to do it for free.
If everyone watched a 2007 youtube course on circuits at MIT and learned the material, the value of such a skillset would be equal to the value of flipping Burgers at Burger King.
Ironically, my grandfather at the time made his career by selling correspondence courses for college degrees. It was the equivalent in those days. He met my grandmother selling her a course in mechanical engineering she used to get a better job at the phone company.
My grandfather started literally at the bottom - shoveling coal into a steamship's boiler. A dirty, dangerous, sweaty job he did for years. He improved his lot by taking correspondence courses, and liked them so much decided on a career in selling them, primarily to sailors.
> If everyone
I wouldn't conflate "don't" with "can't".
I know about the MIT course because I took it myself (along with others) to fill in gaps in my education. And why not? Education doesn't stop with the diploma.
Not everyone can be remarkable enough to go to CalTech.
Appreciate the correction on spelling. I’m more a Midwest guy myself.