Life was better back then. They helped more around the house, otherwise they didn’t have food to eat or a house to live in. They didn’t pay anyone to build their houses or barns. Everyone in town came and did a barn raising. They helped each other out in times of need. They knew who was living next to them.

I was reading on another website where some government officials were asking if they made living in the US better than the Indians did. The Indian guy replied there was no taxes, no debt. Plenty buffalo, plenty beaver. Medicine man free. Indian people hunted and fished all the time. Only white man dumb to think he could improve system like that.

One of the biggest trafficking of illegals, is wood. We are losing our trees left and right. I can remember driving from Seattle to Ellensburg back in 1975 and you couldn’t see the mountains and hills surrounding the highway. Almost every hilltop is bare now. They are having troubles w/ avalanches. Gee if there was trees the snow wouldn’t move as much. I say life was better in Rockafeller’s life. People weren’t as greedy back then as they are nowadays.

I say having a good family is more important to me than all the money in the world. You can’t buy your dad’s attention w/ money. I grew up having my dad drive me around and showing me sights that most people are too busy to look at anymore. I can point out an animal that most people wouldn’t take the time to look at anymore. Like I’ve said before talent is more important than money. Money comes and goes, talent stays w/ you your whole life.

While Ipods and TVs may be getting more accessible and cheaper, healthcare, housing, food, transportation, and time to devote to the essentials of individual and community health and survival, and other basics are getting more and more expensive relatively and more inaccessible. What good is a TV or Ipod if one can’t afford necessary surgery or medication or safe housing?

Being grateful for what you have is wonderful,and “keeping up with the Joneses” doesn’t even register as an option or desire in my world. However, none of that changes the state of quality of life for the average American these days and the fact that the basics, esp. healthcare, education, and in many areas housing as well, have become and are becoming more and more out of reach every day.

We can be grateful and frugal without accepting the definition of wealth promoted in this post and without believing that we are better off today because we have easy access to cheap gadgets, most of which contribute little or nothing to our true quality of life (some do of course). True wealth is not possible without satisfying our needs for survival and health first.

Healthcare is one of the most important determiners of quality of life, and viability of life in general, and just since 2000, “the cost of family [health] coverage has risen 87 percent while consumer prices are up 18 percent and the pay of workers has increased 20 percent” reports an ’06 New York Times article.

As a whole, gadgets like Ipods and Tvs don’t save lives on a regular basis no matter how cheap they may be or become. Medication, surgery, doctors, safe housing and neighborhoods, and time to care for one’s health and community do. And, okay, I’ll grant you this: a little air conditioning (esp. in a heatwave or for more vulnerable populations) doesn’t hurt, either.

[Please excuse the repetition in this comment; I haven't got the time to edit it down better and my writing in raw form is always redundant and wordy.]

Actually, I’m in that 1% and I WISH I lived in a city where I could ride the bus everyday! What’s wrong with riding the bus? Poor people are not the only people on the bus. Unfortunately my city, one of the top 15 largest cities in the country, has extremely poor bus service. I choose not to move, however, because I’m paid very well for what I do here. I’m able to have a comfortable living. In the larger cities, I would not be able to say that.

If you want to take a stand on economic growth, or explore the issue in greater depth, visit the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) on the Web http://www.steadystate.org .

Wealthier people can afford to build our future homes. Through time, those homes make their way through the system (and that process has only become faster in the past few decades). Adam Smith referenced this in Wealth of Nations when he noted that the average 1790 Scotsman lived in a home better than those of former kings (maybe even in a former king’s home), and better than those of kings in 1790 Africa.

No, we cannot all have the best of today, but we can certainly have better than what our grandparents even imagined. I’m sure most remember the two-car garage being quite a luxury. I do and I’m not THAT old. Heck, two televisions was a shock to the 50′s family in Back to the Future. Even the staples of today are far cheaper than they were in the past. If you want to cook for a family of five your bill will be far less expensive than in the past. And when I say “cook” I mean cook, not microwave a dish someone else already cooked for you.

This was a thought-provoking and (by the looks of it) controversial article. Thanks JD (and Bob)!

I hope things get better for you.

Let me leave it at that, okay?

One of my favorite thoughts is that Bill Gates and I both have the same potential to be happy. And that some days I might even be happier than he is. He will always have more money but if I am lucky, I could be richer. What a thought.

-Rick Francis

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2007-11-29/news/douchebags-in-the-mist

They were in the process of making a movie about this phenomenon, but I don’t think it has happened yet.

It is essentially a person making $30,000 per year living like they make much more in an effort to impress those around them. They typically lease BMW’s, wear the latest fashions and are “seen” at the latest clubs and restaurants.

It is a recipe for disaster if you must keep up with the Joneses. Good stuff!

How much do we really need to be happy?
If your household annual income is over $50,000, then you are in the top 1% richest in the world. (See for yourself at the Global Rich List.) And if we can agree that most of us are living a more comfortable life than a billionaire at the turn of the Twentieth Century, then shouldn’t we be happy with what we have?”

The main problem with this comparison is the assertion that wealth and standard of living are causally linked.

Standard of living is affected by spending, whereas wealth is brought about by investing. A strong income ($50,000 per year) does not equal wealth. If that $50,000 per year was obtained from investments, the “wealth” is the investment from which the $50,000 income was generated and is independent from a standard of living. Using that income to buy things creates a standard of living. Trading some of that wealth for things also creates a standard of living.

Do the majority of Americans truly “live an all-around more “comfortable” life than Rockefeller?” Do they have the time and opportunity that Rockefeller enjoyed? If one is working to make a household income over $50,000 per year, are they really richer and better off than someone who has enough wealth to generate passive annual income over $50,000?

Standard of living is relative. Wealth is relative. Rich is a relative term. Indeed, comfort is relative. Income is just a way to keep score. One persons standard of living and wealth would be considered a pauper’s existence to someone else.

It’s true that we should be happy with what we have, but many would trade modern conveniences for the freedom and opportunity created by billionaire wealth, even at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

But while I was driving the other day it occurred to me that I don’t need a new car. Sure, my Taurus may not get more than 30 miles to a gallon but that’s still pretty good. It may not be as sexy as a new BMW, but I’m in a relationship and I know that he doesn’t care what I drive. It gets me from point A to point B and really there is no reason to get a new one until my Taurus becomes unsafe to drive or it just doesn’t work anymore.

Do we have more physical comforts at our disposal than Rockefeller did? Sure. And I would prefer not to have been a typical woman for most of history or in many other parts of the world. Now and here is imperfect but pretty good.

Unfortunately, being more comfortable than 90% of the world’s population doesn’t eliminate the universal human vice of envy (one of the “seven deadly sins” since the 6th century). Frankly, I doubt that even Rockefeller had everything he wanted. Some things are not for sale at any price.

We try to go with being grateful for what we have, and making decisions about which of our wants make sense to pursue. An important facet of wealth that I want my children to understand is that they are among the richest people on the planet, have everything they need, and will never have everything they want. I am embarrassed about how ignorant I was of this until I was well into adulthood.

Bringing Rockefeller into it seems to detract from the idea, though.

I don’t have a secure retirement.

I don’t know whether I’ll have a job next month.

I don’t have enough money to live by myself rather than with strangers.

I don’t know whether I will ever be able to afford to buy a house or have a family.

You know, I don’t even have air conditioning.

An iPod is not going to make up for this.

I recognize the value of gratitude, but it leaves a very sour taste in my mouth to hear someone else telling me to be grateful. It’s not that I’m bitter or envious or greedy.

It’s that I’m scared.

In alot of ways, we have returned to the indentured servitude of the pre-industrial revolution. Whereas they agreed to basically become slaves for 7 years to afford passage to the new world, we do it for an iphone. But at the same time, I feel like we are also more and more returning to the DiY mentality that people of that day lived by, so things are not all bad.

As for keeping up with the Joneses, I feel like I am somehow immune to this concept, since, much to my wife’s constant chagrin, I don’t give a toss what my neighbors and friends own. I think about what I want, and then purchase it to fulfill a (perceived need). Now, I still have been known to do that flippantly (hence my readership here), but I’m not out to impress anyone with a gadget. I consider myself very lucky for that.

@db
Personally, I agree that I would like a lot of things the old-fashioned way, but my reason for writing this was to point out that even some people at the poverty line today can have some of the luxuries of the past.

I like how Daniel put it that, “wealth has dramatically flowed “downward.” –

To me the whole idea has been helpful because it changes my perspective from looking at what others today have that I don’t to realizing that I have things available to me that one of the richest men in history never did.

In other words, define your goals and pursue them, rather than have others define them for you.

Also, I’ve always felt that if you become perfectly content with everything you have or have done, there would be a tendancy to stagnate and live in the past. There is a balance in there in appreciating and enjoying what you have, but still stoking a fire to do more.

They also went from having access to nothing but walking or trains to having animals for transportation to having their own truck all within the years between 1900 and 1920. The truck wasn’t a luxury vehicle — by then they were established as a major grocery in their area and they used the truck for deliveries. The way grocery stores worked back then was that people could send a note or phone in an order to the grocery store, and the grocer would package up your order and deliver it to your door. Hmm — sounds like a convenience I’d like to have.

They were not wealthy, but they were working their way into the American dream. It was hard work, but they achieved it with far less “advantage” than my generation had.

I resent attempts to belittle what they had in an effort to make our present conditions seem so much better. It shows ignorance of the past.

We’re supposed to feel richer than Rockefeller because we have air conditioning and ipods, and can fly to Europe in a few hours, but he didn’t? I don’t think so.

Those things don’t make us “richer.” Rockefeller enjoyed a standard of wealth beyond what most of us know. For his times, if he wanted it he pretty much could have it. And he lived surrounded with a luxury that we really don’t.

If Rockefeller wanted to he could travel to Europe at the drop of a hat. Who cares if he was going by transatlantic oceanliner? In fact, that seems like a richer option to me — since he’d be travelling at the height of luxury, and even moreso since he’d have a completely different conception of time. Even if you are flying first class these days, flying is nowhere near the experience it was when you had several days of catered luxury at your beck and call on board a ship. Rockefeller travelled in style, we simply herd ourselves like cattle onto a plane and rush around.

And as for ipods — I have a theory that the reason modern music is so awful today is because it’s become so easy to get access to it. Back in the day when you had to have access to live musicians, music HAD to be beautiful and aesthetically pleasing since it was a luxury item. Now, music is cheap and available anywhere, and the sort of music being made is vulgar and ugly comparatively. I’d rather listen to music the way Rockefeller did — live — a much higher quality of experience. I think ipods have diminished our quality of life.

As for air conditioning — well, yes that’s nice. Of course, we’ve also completely lost any sense of designing buildings to maximize natural cooling flows of air. I bet Rockefeller’s home took much better advantage of existing knowledge about how to build a building that could use air flows to stay comfortable. It’s called being smart about building design rather than forcing high energy-cost technology into it.

Of course, it’s not just Rockefeller. I recall being both in my maternal grandmother’s house built in 1905 in rural Colorado to poor people, and my paternal grandmother’s house built in the 1930s in rural Mississippi during the blazing hot summers. And in both, when you opened the doors and windows and let the air flow through, it really made a difference in the comfort levels of the house.

My grandparents on both sides had very little compared to all the “wealth” of today, and yet I swear they had a lot more than we did. They both had extended families close by to help them through hard times and celebrate in good times. They were close-knit in a way we aren’t today – heck, I live isolated from my entire family and have no reliable social network to speak of.

Even though they were poor, they always had access to a local doctor which really isn’t guaranteed today, and it was a lot less expensive to see him. I have health insurance, but my deductible is so high I don’t dare use it. Not to mention that every time I have broken down and used it, the care is unsatisfactory and ridiculously expensive. And overuse of antibiotics is breeding superviruses.

And as for constant access to fruits and vegetables — good grief. They GREW their own fruits and vegetables, and canned it so they did have year-round access to it. Or got it locally grown. And they got the benefit of very fresh fruits and vegetables. What is available in the stores today doesn’t even begin to compare.

If I had my choice, I think I’d rather prefer to live in Rockefeller’s day.

That aside, there’s no reason that this same article couldn’t be written 100 years ago or 100 years from now.