In the 1950s and ’60s — the so-called Golden Age of American capitalism — family outings were within the realm of affordability for most median income earners.

In the 1950s and ’60s — the so-called Golden Age of American capitalism — family outings were within the realm of affordability for most median income earners. Many blue-collar workers could afford new homes and cars and still take their kids to Disneyland. WW2 marks the end of The Great Depression. Due to high unemployment during The Great Depression, America was able to increase supply of both "guns and butter" -- the shorthand they used for military production and consumer products. During the war, there was rationing, there were Victory Gardens where people grew their own food so farm production could feed the soldiers overseas, women went to work at very high rates to fill essential jobs left vacant by so many men shipping out as soldiers. They stopped production of cars and converted car factories to jeep factories. You couldn't buy silk stockings, so women bought makeup and drew a seam down the back of their leg to look like thry were in silk stockings. You couldn't buy sugar, so birthday cakes were sometimes a sawdust mockup for show, just to blow out the candles. Cigarettes were rationed. You had low birth rates because as Lucille Ball once said, you can't phone that in and the men were mostly overseas. You had many two income couples with no kids being born and nothing to spend the money on due to wartime rationing and restrictions. The result: Savings rates exceeded 50 percent during parts of the war. "The Boys" came home and as veterans were entitled to both help going to college and help buying a house. Prior to that time, both homeownership and college were generally viewed as more upperclass trappings. The so-called middle class of the 1950s and 60s had upperclass assets, working class sensibilities and a substantial nest egg to start their family with. If we made the entire US buckle down, work, stop having kids, denied them spending opportunities and forced them to save half their income etc for the next five years, then issued them help with mortgage payments and free college tuition, the 2030s might look a lot like the 1950s. But we can't, so we won't. Yet that's the invisible elephant in the room behind what created the wealth of the 1950s and how that legacy still haunts us in myriad ways.