It’s stunning how many people seem to forget that there are other countries on the planet that use dollars and weren’t involved in Vietnam. No, I’m not making an assumption. The person who posted this is Canadian.

Y’all really need to take a step back and reflect a little bit.

  • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
    32·
    11 days ago

    My grandfather picked tomatoes to eventually buy his house in cash.

    He was a hard worker, but damn, imagine buying a house in cash.

    Dude went on to have like 10 kids and a good standard of living.

    • edric@lemm.eeEnglish
      13·
      11 days ago

      Yeah, you’ll still have a good 20 years to enjoy retirement with your portfolio, then peace out before the pandemic.

  • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    28·
    11 days ago

    Didn’t work for me… in my 1972 bank job interview I was told, “I’d hire you if you were a man, but you’re not. If I hired you, you’d just get pregnant and leave.” It wasn’t against the law for him to say all that.

    And for what it’s worth I didn’t buy a home - a small one-bed flat - until I was in my 40s. Cost me so much I couldn’t afford proper furniture. Yes, my current house is worth a lot more than what I paid for it (mainly because I bought a wreck), but so is any other house I could afford if I sold it.

    • swelter_spark@reddthat.comEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      I had the same interview at a dental office in something like 2017. I wasn’t offered the job because, as the female dentist told me, they’d have to put a lot of time and effort into teaching me, and then I might just get pregnant and quit.

    • Trollception@sh.itjust.works
      21·
      9 days ago

      Wow, so it’s almost like no matter what time/year you were born that you will have hardships to face? Lemmy led me to believe that houses cost peanuts in the 60s and everyone working at a gas station could afford a multi room house.

    • ifeelsick@lemm.eeEnglish
      14·
      11 days ago

      would be great if you told us how much it costed and how much you brought in hourly. i wanna sympathize but then i remember you could rent a studio in the 70s-80s for like 300 dollars month. i probably could have bought a house with a missing arm and working 30 hours a week.

      • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        11 days ago

        My flat cost £43k in the early 90s, nearly three times my annual income at the time, and all my savings went on the deposit. I had previously lived in a shared house, the only way I could afford to save anything.

        More nostalgia… Looking for a 1br flat to rent in 1980s Wellington (NZ) was a trip. Demand far, far outstripped supply. Among the gems offered to me for top rental (can’t remember how much, but it was crazily high), was a place that stank of damp and had rat-holes chewed in the bathroom wall - which was just soggy softboard against a dirt bank. There were three couples viewing at the same time. Another place I was told was fresh to the market, no-one else had seen it yet. The stove had been dismantled and the toilet was piled high with human shit. When I shouted at the agent she said, You don’t want it then?" and hung up.

        I eventually lucked in with a “granny flat” whose owners, an adorable elderly Polish couple, lived upstairs.

        • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          11 days ago

          I dont know how things are in new zealand these days but in a medium city in canada a house or condo costs at least 10 times the average annual income and closer to 20-25 times a minimum wage income. So things may not have been as easy for you as the post makes it seem but they’re a hell of a lot harder for a lot of people now.

        • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
          1·
          11 days ago

          Dang so it sounds like new Zealand has had a bit of a time with housing for a while then huh? I’ve heard a lot about it recently but just assumed it was a relatively new probably (post 2000-ish)

          • Xcf456@lemmy.nzEnglish
            1·
            10 days ago

            Yes we’ve been through multiple housing crises although it’s gotten truly ridiculous in the last couple decades.

            The crowning achievement of the first labour government when they were elected in 1935 was to create a massive state house building programme due to the huge shortages and miserable state of the stock at the time. This continued until the 1980s when we went full neoliberal, privatised everything and sold off most of the state houses and private landlords and speculation now dominate.

            Anything built between early 1990s and 2004ish is prone to leaks due to the deregulated building code at the time and is basically trash.

            Wellington is a particularly bad case, and has always had a worse housing situation than the rest of the country (although Auckland is more expensive). Hilly topography has meant lack of space to build and lots of damp hovels that get little sun. Add in character/heritage protection that made it effectively illegal to alter or demolish the draughty and falling apart 1920s wooden villas that make up most of inner Wellington and there you go.

        • ifeelsick@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          11 days ago

          ahhh, didnt realize you were from the UK dont know enough to speak on it. i rescind anything i might have said

          • Adiemus@lemm.ee
            1·
            10 days ago

            That’s the general problem for everyone who is not from US here on Lemmy: Everybody from US assumes that everybody knows we are talking about US. I would never say that “the ideal life is being born in 1947” and I was wondering why anyone would say that. That’s right after World War 2. Must have been a crazy time.

            • skisnow@lemmy.caEnglish
              1·
              10 days ago

              Yeah, I was hoping I’d see less of that moving away from Reddit to a non-US site, but eh, what can you do.

        • skisnow@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          When my parents bought in the UK in the early 80s, the average family house was £20k. But mortgage rates at the time were ~20%, meaning you had to pay £4k per year just to cover the interest alone, and the average salary was below £6k.

          Yes, interest came back down after a few years, but a lot of people learned about Negative Equity during those years.

  • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
    231·
    11 days ago

    Not specific enough. Going by typical evil genie rules you’d be born in 47’, but be a poc in like Alabama or Oklahoma. Just in time to get drafted to fight in Vietnam and then have to fight for civil rights at home.

      • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
        11·
        11 days ago

        Im amazed that ever worked. If you forcibly tore my house down to build a road, you’d find that that road had a tendency to explode… every week or so

  • the_q@lemm.eeEnglish
    15·
    11 days ago

    My dad bought his house for $650 in 1976, had it moved from the mill village where it was for $2000 and has lived in it on land he was given for 50 years. Its current value is over $225k.

    He offered to sell me a quarter acre for $50k.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      11 days ago

      Yeah, I’m pretty happy with being born after the draft became less used and I’m now old enough to not qualify for the draft anymore. Life is pretty good.

    • Stamets@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      Countries other than the United States exist and my country was the one people ran away to in order to avoid the draft. Also the same country of the person who posted this.

  • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
    6·
    11 days ago

    I mean okay but this person would’ve been a young adult during the Vietnam war and the war on drugs and died at 53 to avoid the war on terror.

  • MeatPilot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    11 days ago

    My dad was born in 1947. He died a year ago. Lived in my basement for 3 years toward the end, we converted it to a “in-law” suite. Probably spent most of his money on medical bills though because he had an accident that paralyzed half his body.

    Anyhow he worked the same job his entire life only worked his way up to middle management at a factory. Prided himself in slacking off his entire career and still did better than I do now and I have to work much harder and have my spouse be employed to pull in what he did alone half-assing it.

    So it was different for sure, middle-class was easily achieved if you were a white male. I’d almost say if you were poor you just got very unlucky, were a single mom, or a minority. If you were a white male, you’d really have to be dealt a bad hand in life to not be middle-class.

  • Formfiller@lemmy.world
    5·
    11 days ago

    For some my uncle and my dad did these things but also died prematurely from health complications related to Vietnam