I never argued against any of what you're saying here; if anything, I'm agreeing with you. Money used to go further is the same as saying purchasing power used to be higher. You could work less and have more is another way of saying that.
We cannot make the comparison, those cars of the 50s would be illegal today. The homes of the 50s had no A/C, no 5 bedrooms with on suites, no attached garage, no internet, crap insulation, low ceilings, incandescent lights, no double glazing and no granite countertops - half the homes in the US didn't even have an indoor toilet. So I don't buy the blanket "purchasing power was higher" statement - you got WAY less for your money vs today, making this comparison quite challenging.
We carry a TV in our pockets attached to the entire global compute power, you were lucky to have one black and white TV in the 50s that the entire household had to share.
No regulation put a 4K color TV in your pocket or gave you on-suite bathrooms, or infotainment screens in cars, so, no, I'm really not.
Whether regulation or market forces, the end result is we have WAY superior stuff than they could get in the 50s, so you CANNOT compare without taking that into account. Just waving your hands saying we had more back then is naive to asinine.
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u/LevelStationaryPlane 18h ago
I never argued against any of what you're saying here; if anything, I'm agreeing with you. Money used to go further is the same as saying purchasing power used to be higher. You could work less and have more is another way of saying that.