Me Again,
The FEW at the top are the business owners and operators who employ and furnish the very paychecks and income of the "working class". Why are so "dumb" as to bite the very hand that feeds you? Even animals are smarter than that!
Yes, I'm 72 and have had and have lots of RV's, boats, homes, fancy dinners, lavish vacations and Christmas's, etc just like so many of my age. However, the RV's boats, homes, etc attributes and size was not even remotely like what is called the norm today. You need to think back very carefully and be honest. The 1950's/60's basic 1000-1200 sq ft simple home with basic appliances of the era and simple furnishings on simple yards with NO pool etc, a simple sedan car with roll down windows, no A/C, little engines often with a stick, a plain basic low HP (under 75 HP) outboard open aluminum, wood, or simple fiberglass boat on a trailer, a small very cheap 16-20 ft TT or popup trailer, as there were few type choices back then, with NO A/C, TV, power jacks, small ice boxes or very small gas fridge, and a patio awning was a real luxury, or maybe you only had or could afford a tent! Yes, I remember them very well!
I also remember very low taxes and stiffling income robbing regulations like today and/or add on taxes/charges. 3 cent postage stamps and 3% sales tax. NO state income taxes! Nearly all recreation venues (state and local) were free to all with zreo entrance fees.
If you wanted to eat, you better get a job or starve. No one paid your bills for you! Handouts were nearly unheard of. Personal responsibility was mandated, with NO exceptions! A max of 26 weeks of $40 to $60 a week of unemployment benefits and you must have a list of 2 places you had actually applied for employment at each and every week or you were denied your check! Your list was always checked out! You had to prove you were available and seeking employment every week. NO cradle to grave take care of me like is pushed or mandated today, period!
You bet I can remember it well! That's why I and my wife put our noses to the grind stone and built a better life for us and our kids and it took extreme sacrifices but we sucked it up and stuck to it and it sure paid off. You'll never take from us! Today, most people tend to want everything of luxury given to them and use regulations, taxes, and addon charges to steal others accompolishments. The handouts today are so far superior to the best living environments most could have by fulltime working in the 1950's. Unions like to treat everyone the same but they are not remotely the same. They hold back the achievers and protect the riff raff and lazy. You are all paying with your deductions, taxes, penalties, premiums, and with every purchse made for this insane screwing up of life in America.
Then to add salt into an open wound, you/other thought you were cutting a fat hog by buying foreign made products and just kept on buying them until your job was eliminated and you have the nerve to ask why it happened? Look around your home and your entire families homes and where were the contents made? Sure employed a lot of Americans to make all that "stuff" didn't it? TV's used to all be built in the USA and so were computers, ranges, refrigerators, vehicles, appliances, tools of all kinds, clothes, building products, and one of the latest is the drastic lowering of our food grown in the USA as much is imported now.
I do NOT feel one bit sorry for the issues of finance and lack of funds spoke of today or on this forum. You have all done it to yourselves and to your kids future and their kids future and you don't seem to even really care as you just complain about it rahter than doing something about it. Maybe, you really just like it the way it is??? Then enjoy the world that you have helped build! You built it and you own it!
