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Not kidding here, but one of the most helpful things my Dad ever told me as a teenager was "You probably won't have the same standard of living as we've had whi

Not kidding here, but one of the most helpful things my Dad ever told me as a teenager was "You probably won't have the same standard of living as we've had while you were growing up" because he made good money in a specialized, unionized profession. He saw, first-hand, how his employment and skills were being cheapened not by competition, but by globalization mentalities, which, in his words (paraphrased) "Isn't about bringing them up, but bringing our standard of living down." Oh, and his ever present suspicion of "management" which, history eventually proved true, wanted to take money from his profession and give it to themselves and "investors" - which did happen (I won't go into details but it was staggering). It was through these discussions and sharing of perspective - just one man's view of the world - that I was taught to value health, happiness, and appreciate a life not defined by the materialism that could've been a real sink-hole for me if I'd tried to achieve even greater "status" than he did. Just to put a last bit of context on it, every five years of so my parents would think about getting a used Corvette convertible, but they could never justify what seemed like such a wasteful purchase...by comparison, my Dad drove a 1991 Ford Ranger pickup, purchased new, babied as a second vehicle, until eventually selling it with 80,000 miles on it for 3x the book value sometime around 2010. I'm a big-time car guy and have dreamed of a Lamborghini Countach since forever. But now, having lived in the "real world" for over a decade, I'm just happy to have a nice 4-banger Toyota with good air conidtioning, tinted windows that gets 30 mpg when I keep my foot out of it. Looking at 2008, all I can think about is how greed is a terrible, toxic basis for a value system.

snickerdoodles 11y ago
Your parents seem pragmatic, and it's great that they've passed it along to you. My wife and I have tried to instill in our children too that it's not what you own, but what owns you.
harryh 11y ago
The earning power of the emerging asian middle class has doubled in the last 20 years. If that's not "bringing them up" then what is?
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  To stay on my initial point, a situation where the Asian middle class grows and the US middle class has not eroded in the past 20 years would be an appropriate example.
  - harryh 11y ago
    Frankly, I don't buy the story of an eroding American middle class. A stagnating one maybe. But there just isn't data to support the idea of a regressing one. People look at the past with rose colored glasses.
    - 6stringmerc 11y ago
      Yes, there is data in support of a regressing middle class in the US and it can be most easily seen in the labor force participation rate and the hourly wage "underemployment" demographics of the working class under the age of 35. I mean, if you want to deal in beliefs, then you can believe whatever you want. Speaking of rose colored glasses, a "doubling" of the Asian middle class in the past 20 years doesn't strike me as much improvement if we start talking about the hard numbers and population % still living in abject poverty.
      - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        > Speaking of rose colored glasses, a "doubling" of the Asian middle class in the past 20 years doesn't strike me as much improvement if we start talking about the hard numbers and population % still living in abject poverty. But it's a massive improvement if you talk about the numbers who were living in poverty and now aren't. Much progress. Much yet to do. Both are true.
      - harryh 11y ago
        1) The labor force participation rate is declining primarily due to an aging population. And even with the decline it's still much higher than it was at any time before the mid 80s (primarily due to women entering the workforce). 2) The % of the world living in extreme poverty has declined dramatically in the past half century. http://www.vox.com/2015/8/13/9145467/extreme-poverty-global-poverty http://www.vox.com/2015/8/13/9145467/extreme-poverty-global-... The story of the last 50 years is really about members of the western middle class finally having to deal with competition from the rest of the world due to globalization. While this has certainly had some downsides for the western middle class it has been an INCREDIBLY HUGE BOON for everyone else. It's very hard to overstate how fast east asia has transformed from poverty to relative wealth and how good this has been for hundreds of millions of people. Go look at a picture of what Shanghai looked like in 1990 vs today: http://gizmodo.com/5558350/shanghai-skyline-before-and-after http://gizmodo.com/5558350/shanghai-skyline-before-and-after

snickerdoodles 11y ago

Your parents seem pragmatic, and it's great that they've passed it along to you. My wife and I have tried to instill in our children too that it's not what you own, but what owns you.

harryh 11y ago

The earning power of the emerging asian middle class has doubled in the last 20 years. If that's not "bringing them up" then what is?

6stringmerc 11y ago
To stay on my initial point, a situation where the Asian middle class grows and the US middle class has not eroded in the past 20 years would be an appropriate example.
- harryh 11y ago
  Frankly, I don't buy the story of an eroding American middle class. A stagnating one maybe. But there just isn't data to support the idea of a regressing one. People look at the past with rose colored glasses.
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Yes, there is data in support of a regressing middle class in the US and it can be most easily seen in the labor force participation rate and the hourly wage "underemployment" demographics of the working class under the age of 35. I mean, if you want to deal in beliefs, then you can believe whatever you want. Speaking of rose colored glasses, a "doubling" of the Asian middle class in the past 20 years doesn't strike me as much improvement if we start talking about the hard numbers and population % still living in abject poverty.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      > Speaking of rose colored glasses, a "doubling" of the Asian middle class in the past 20 years doesn't strike me as much improvement if we start talking about the hard numbers and population % still living in abject poverty. But it's a massive improvement if you talk about the numbers who were living in poverty and now aren't. Much progress. Much yet to do. Both are true.
    - harryh 11y ago
      1) The labor force participation rate is declining primarily due to an aging population. And even with the decline it's still much higher than it was at any time before the mid 80s (primarily due to women entering the workforce). 2) The % of the world living in extreme poverty has declined dramatically in the past half century. http://www.vox.com/2015/8/13/9145467/extreme-poverty-global-poverty http://www.vox.com/2015/8/13/9145467/extreme-poverty-global-... The story of the last 50 years is really about members of the western middle class finally having to deal with competition from the rest of the world due to globalization. While this has certainly had some downsides for the western middle class it has been an INCREDIBLY HUGE BOON for everyone else. It's very hard to overstate how fast east asia has transformed from poverty to relative wealth and how good this has been for hundreds of millions of people. Go look at a picture of what Shanghai looked like in 1990 vs today: http://gizmodo.com/5558350/shanghai-skyline-before-and-after http://gizmodo.com/5558350/shanghai-skyline-before-and-after