Everyone will be Independently Wealthy by 2000 - Time/New York Times

[bjl584]

Here is an excerpt from an article in Time Magazine and the New York Times from 1966/1967

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Running that 1966 $30,000 to $40,000 through an inflation calculator, I see they were talking about a current day equivalent of $314,000 to $419,000. Amusing.

[riverwed070707]

Boy we really screwed that up. If only they could have seen it coming that the capitalism that made us a powerful nation would just create greedy ogliarchs and a shrinking middle class.

[myrdale]

Some guy at Time magazine, and another guy at the New York Times (could have been the same person), made predictions that in some 35ish years people would live in a utopia?

This doesn't show that we somehow missed the mark or an opportunity, it shows someone with no understanding of economics made outlandish predictions and got them published.

It's like people claiming global warming is going to flood the planet. Or when Hurricane Katrina occurred, claims it was the "new normal".

Considering how few people had color TV or air conditioning back then. Considering the sizes of homes. I'd say we're better off now than in 1965, even if we still have to work for a living.

[riverwed070707]

I think it's less of a complaint of having to work and more of a gripe about how the average worker is earning less in today's dollars than they were in 1966 while we've created a network of billionaires... and now trillionaire... who hoard most of the wealth despite the tech advancements that would allow us to have more meaningful work and leisure if it were distributed. For some reason a lot of middle class people are fine with this because they either believe it doesn't affect them or feel that poverty is a result of not trying hard enough. Neither of which are true.