Comment - FBXL Lotide

Comment on Wouldn't want to live during those times

Meanwhile, in the US:

The unions fought for and obtained substantial protections during the great depression / new deal era, many of those are still around in the 1960s
The US recently came out of a world war that destroyed the industrial infrastructure of just about every other country in the world, leaving the US untouched, meaning that US factories can now supply the whole world, and meaning workers are in high demand

And the American “influencers” of the era were telling Americans that it was all great because of capitalism. The truth was that American workers were in an amazing position because of the left-over socialism from the 1930s, and because the US came out of WWII undamaged, unlike every other major country.

source

Sort:hotnew top

UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Also young boomers and their voting power.

source
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Fallout from the prosperity included a booming 1950s that spread convenience and luxury items everywhere, spawning a generation that expected them. The boom was possible largely because consumer goods had been rationed during the war or simply not produced because war contracts were more profitable. But the war created nearly 100% employement, and war production jobs paid very well. People had money to spend and no luxuries to spend it on, so there was a huge wave of saving.

Then after the war, once previously scarce consumer goods were being produced again, plus new goodies like televisions and all kinds of convenient home appliances, people spent like crazy, creating more jobs and higher salaries, which multiplied the effect.

By around 1960 the boom was finally losing steam. So the business world, which wanted it to keep going forever, started handing out consumer credit like candy. Likewise the public, who didn’t want their spending spree to end, embraced the idea of credit debt. Once those mechanisms were in place in the culture, it was simply a matter of normalizing higher and higher balances at higher and higher interest rates, and now here we are with lifelong debt being “normal”.

source