I think about it a lot, and had some weakly structured thoughts about it: - when you picture the sickly sweet Boomer American dream of 60s or 70s, you see a su

I think about it a lot, and had some weakly structured thoughts about it: - when you picture the sickly sweet Boomer American dream of 60s or 70s, you see a suburban family, maybe some high-level blue collar job for the dad and a "homemaker" mum, living in a big house in a pretty suburb of some no-name town. - I guess these blue collar jobs don't exist anymore. Jobs that pay a medium-to-high salary require high specialisation. It's no longer the days of car companies building entire cities and herding people to them, providing housing, training and a salary. - the qualifications are also expensive to acquire. If we now say a university degree is a prerequisite to entering the race, and it costs O(100k) then your chance of getting on the gravy train is very small, unless you come from money yourself. - so I guess, it's easier to grow a less developed economy than a more developed one. The US used to grow by the pluck and bravery of bricklayers building Empire State Building by hand, now it's the highly skilled hands of bioengineers in start up labs. - out expectations of success have skyrocketed too. Did the boomers of 60s and 70s who made it go on holiday abroad every year? Did they have iPhones and lots of other gadgets? Thinking about films from the era, they seemed happy with a house and a hot family meal at the end of the day. - GDP per capita outperforms inflation in the US, and yet median standard of life is decreasing. I guess that tells you that more of what is produced is distributed unevenly, to "the rich". I mean, to some extent that happens always, but it's probably gone too far. - finally, and that's possibly controversial, but how much of the American Dream was fuelled by the "underclasses": ethnic minorities and women. People who contributed to GDP but didn't get to reap the fruit of their work. The US south first became rich literally off slave work, and arguably emancipation is still under way. Ditto for women. But then, have Black Americans experienced a larger increase in the standard of living than say White Americans? My impression is not; eg the previous boom may have been at their expense, but does not explain why it is over now.