I think there's a bit of rose-tinted glasses going on here, and you're really painting a straw man. Not all of us buy expensive smartphones, have $500 car loan

I think there's a bit of rose-tinted glasses going on here, and you're really painting a straw man. Not all of us buy expensive smartphones, have $500 car loans, thousand-dollar coffee shop bills, etc etc. Similarly, not all of your beloved, vaunted Boomers were penny-pinching misers who saved all they got and avoided the drive-in, movies, and bars. My impression (never having lived it 60s and 70s, of course) is that people then we just as excessive as we are now, or at least the marginal difference can't explain away the giant gap in wealth.