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As long as you're white

That's... Dying at 54 years of age?

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.

Or you could’ve been sent to Vietnam…

The ideal life is dying when you're only 54? That's pretty bleak!

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.

Change the last bit to

Retire in 2001 with a inflation linked final salary pension scheme.

The ideal life is to be born a multi-millionaire, then earn billions by exploiting workers

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.

being prime military age for the vietnam war? no, please got no

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

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.

They left out the part about getting drafted and sent to Vietnam with that 3rd grade education and risk dying for people that didn't care about you and other that hated you. Then coming home and getting spit on, literally spit on, by the people around you. And no one caring about the damage war caused you.

My dad bought about a third of an acre of waterfront property in the 80s with a small cottage on it that we added to. He paid something like $50,000. Guess what a small waterfront property is worth now?

So you wouldn't even live to be 60?

I am so tired of people presuming that ~~US's economic history is somehow universal.~~ all countries have first world economy of western hemisphere, more specifically, the anglosphere. Boy do I love cultural hegemony.

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.

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.