“ after a day driving a laundry truck. His bride, Grace, snapped the photo outside their first house.”
Driving a laundry truck.. first house..
Life was so much better a few decades ago.
Driving a laundry truck.. first house..
Life was so much better a few decades ago.
Every generation has its ups and downs. For my generation, I have to deal with sky-high real estate prices, but I also have access to an unprecedented amount of free entertainment, free knowledge, the cheap supercomputer in my pocket allows me to stay in touch with anyone that I want, and when I go to the doctor, I probably won't see people in iron lungs anymore. I can travel to anywhere in the world for ridiculously low prices, and if I don't speak the language, a live translation app will do the work for me.
No, it's not all sunshine and roses, and people are right to call out issues with the current state of the world because things are NOT alright. But it's not like things were sunshine and roses for our grandparents generation either.
on top of that you have skyrocketing real estate prices.
All built on a global underclass that will never experience these things. All built on processes with unsustainable emissions that will cause horrible calamities in the future (and even now). This isn't good.
It's a confounding factor.
Buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility and you basically give up any freedoms to be able to pay your mortgage, saved up for any repairs, and hope that a natural disaster doesn't wipe out your largest investment.
Comparatively, we're at the best time to be alive in history. I don't even know where the person I'm replying to lives, but I don't they will receive this message almost instantly.
I can learn about anything I want to, whenever I want.
I can travel almost anywhere without fear of getting lost.
I can order exotic things that I'd never see sticked on local shelves at the click of a mouse.
Life is pretty convenient and amazing and I'm okay sacrificing stress-filled homeownership for other luxuries.
(Not that we should have to, mind you, but that wasn't the question posed.)
An infinite supply of anything to satisfy all of your desires does not lead to a fulfilling life -- just one with enough distractions to get you through the next day.
I think you kind of missed the point. The GP was talking about the days when a laundry truck driver could afford a house, i.e. a time when owning a house wasn't that big of a deal. If you could afford it as a laundry truck driver in your twenties, then you cold also afford to totally lose it, live as a renter for a few years, and buy another house in your thirties or forties. The entire point was, it didn't take such a crippling anmount of debt back then.
If medical care and peacetime and technology has progressed so much, why hasn't general living circumstances and wealth equity?
My great grandfather served in both world wars and went to the hospital exactly once in his life, when he died in his 80s.
No, that house is not going to be in Palo alto, and it is not going to be newly renovated.
His house probably wasn't either.
i think this sentiment stems from an at core inflated expectation to life.
I know of plenty of out if the city places where housing prices hasn't changed over the previous 15 years and where you probably would be able to find subsistence to pay you mortgage and get food on the table.
Living in a dense, urban environment close to all the expensive 'luxuries' is exactly the type of life eschewed by the subject of the story.