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My grandfather was a printer not to far from that Burger King, in a building now owned by the academy of art. In 1963 he had 5 children, a house in Daly City an

My grandfather was a printer not to far from that Burger King, in a building now owned by the academy of art. In 1963 he had 5 children, a house in Daly City and 3 apartments across the street from Dolores park as well as a brand new home in Terra Linda. He died early, but extended family stayed in the business. It was union work, he as the youngest operator of the 4 color press. His wife my grandmother didn’t work. The printing business was cooked by the early 90s. I was laid off from Broadcom a year and a half ago- I think about the printing industry to Ai analogue all the time. I got lucky and got a job a startup making less than half of what I made before. I know much more capable and smart people laid off in the same round- that are still wondering what the hell to do.

close04 2mo ago
> he had 5 children, a house in Daly City and 3 apartments across the street from Dolores park as well as a brand new home in Terra Linda How well would you need to be paid now in any career to support a family like that one while accumulating that wealth already early in life? Careers can evaporate just the same but what they leave behind is vastly different from 60 years ago.
- danans 2mo ago
  > How well would you need to be paid now in any career to support a family like that one while accumulating that wealth already early in life? The answer is that you don't do it by getting paid (as in exchanging labor for wages). You do it by finding a way to scale your wealth with other people's labor.
  - Peaches4Rent 2mo ago
    Aah, so by definition only a select few can do it
    - detourdog 2mo ago
      I would say only a few do it and they are self-selected. The ones that do it have a sense of agency that is lacking in the ones that dont do it. Some people never notice their own agency they believe it comes from outside them.
      - Oras 2mo ago
        It’s not only agency, and it sounds like you do your own thing which is great, but the pressure coming with it is not bearable by many. It’s kind of similar to competitive sport, thousands train and put the effort chasing a wild goose, but only handful make it big. That’s why it raises a question many others: is it really worth it? And for that, I agree with you, it’s self-selected to take the suffering jounrey
        detourdog 2mo ago
        It is suffering and I'm not sure it is worth it. I didn't notice the suffering until the later stage of life.
      - scott_weber 2mo ago
        Very convenient, if you're someone who benefits from this arrangement, to be able to tell yourself that a brute numerical fact (if you profit off others labour, there must be those whose labour is profited off of) just so happens to by divine coincidence to go hand in hand with the profiteers just happening to have some nebulous quality that morally justifies the whole arrangement.
        detourdog 2mo ago
        You sound like you may be lacking agency. Agency is simply being aware that one can make decisions for themselves based on their own metrics. . "if you're someone who benefits from this arrangement, to be able to tell yourself that a brute numerical fact". I think this is the root of your confusion. Humans have long demonstrated the pattern of gathering in groups to survive. These groups usually worked out a way to pool resources to increase the chances of living a comfortable life. "(if you profit off others labour, there must be those whose labour is profited off of)" Security markets are open to everyone. There are no restrictions on who can participate. Many companies compensate workers with stock, or other retirement plans that provide ways to buy securities. What you're describing is slavery. Our current systems are trying to move from slavery to at will labor. I find your comment out of touch with our current circumstances. Our current timeline is no different and the security markets is the idea we manifested to create co-operation. Now certainly our timeline is FUBARed. If I wasn't so numb I would weeping everyday at the news but the world is still co-operating. Hard to believe but it could always be worse. "just so happens to by divine coincidence to go hand in hand with the profiteers just happening to have some nebulous quality that morally justifies the whole arrangement." What nebulous quality? Agency is well defined and a term of art in psychology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_%28psychology%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_%28psychology%29
  - pj_mukh 2mo ago
    Good faith counter point >>” to scale your wealth with other people's labor” Or you can scale your labor with openly available AI?
    - detourdog 2mo ago
      I found that that stock market is the way to scale income. One can't make big money with just their hands unless they are an artist.
      - jrapdx3 2mo ago
        Very few artists earn a living in art let alone become wealthy. The art world is highly competitive, though real talent and innovation are rare. But making it big in art is more about self-promotion and marketing than artistic ability. So success is only marginally correlated with what they do with their hands, as opposed to what's done with their mouths.
        detourdog 2mo ago
        The number of artists that succeed is irrelevant to my comment. No one needs to tell me about the life of an Artist or the Art world. My dad was a fine art painter, my mom was a potter, another uncle is a kinetic sculptor, one uncle made pastel's of Sulky races to get by. I have a cousin that was a pioneer in computer graphics attending the Media Lab while it was still in the architecture department. I was raised in the art world by a multi-generational art family. None were wildly successful all managed to make enough for a good life. Farmers, bakers, masseuses, carpenters,... all work with their hands generally only artist can take rubbish and turn it into big money. The criticism of the art world you put forward is very one-dimensional.
        jrapdx3 2mo ago
        Your family certainly has an impressive record of success in the art world. My father was a talented painter but didn't attempt to sell his work. He was an even more talented pianist but rarely performed publicly. My sister is an exceptionally talented painter and sculptor. I encouraged her to put her work out there but never did, a real shame. I'm also an artist, primarily a printmaker. I've made my living otherwise, though my work sells at a modest pace. I know many artists in galleries but only a few earn enough to pay their bills. Artists who do earn a living are good self-promoters of their work or build reputation through family connections to patrons. The shy ones remain unknown. Hardly a "criticism of the art world" just a summation of decades-long observation. For every artist turning rubbish into big money there are many who only turn rubbish into garbage. Perhaps my comments are "one-dimensional", but so is implying that turning rubbish into big money is easy to achieve.
  - close04 2mo ago
    That’s the answer to a different question. We were talking about a printer who probably wasn’t acing the stock market in the ‘60s but his salary covered all that. Question stands, if anyone can offer a good equivalence for something similar today.
    - danans 2mo ago
      > Question stands, if anyone can offer a good equivalence for something similar today. Then no, it's not possible for the average worker, largely because the advance of technology raised the bar on labor, requiring more (and increasingly expensive) education, all while that 60s worker and their generation, caught in a Reaganite zeal, pulled up the ladder behind them in housing and destroyed public goods.
- roenxi 2mo ago
  If you're happy to live life to a 1960s standard, it'd be quite cheap. If I'm interpreting the stats properly [0], he expected to put two children through high school and the other 3 would have been contributing a lot to the family quite early on. It'd also be interesting to check whether it's legal to build the same apartment in Daly City's current regulatory environment because that isn't a given. Plus, the US government at the time was less than half the size of the private sector [1] so we'd expect he was contributing less to dead-weight government projects and corruption. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_104.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_104.10.a... [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Government_Revenue_and_spending_GDP.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=original https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Governme...
  - close04 2mo ago
    Obviously I’m interested in the modern equivalent of whatever that man had. If those apartments were on the outskirts of the city, then something equivalent today. If society expected the kids to finish no more than high-school then but university today, then university it is. And I want to understand if there’s any chance to do it the same way with salaried work, not with clever investment over decades, or winning the lottery, or getting an inheritance. Which are all valid ways to have a lot of wealth but don’t tell me the value of salaried work in the US today.
    - roenxi 2mo ago
      The modern equivalent to what the man had is what the man had. You'd need to be paid maybe a bit less to support a family like he had because everything has gotten slightly more efficient over the years. If you want to define things by means and medians, the median worker had a median lifestyle then and a median lifestyle today. If you want much more than he had, you're going to need to pay much more for it. Bit of an obvious one.
      - setopt 2mo ago
        It really isn’t though. The median person in 1963 didn’t need say internet or computers or smartphones, because no one expected them to have one. Good luck even applying for a job today without at least a computer and internet, and possibly a smartphone capable of running very specific apps. Don’t get me wrong, I love my computer, but as the GP indicated the rest of society expect very different things from you today – more equipment, more education, etc. Those things aren’t just increased living standards, they are increased job requirements.
- listenallyall 2mo ago
  How much wealth? Not really that much if you move to the middle of the country. You're thinking of San Francisco (well, Daly City) of the 2020's, which San Francisco absolutely was not in 1963. Nice place, sure, but still heavily working class, blue-collar and union. You could have 5 kids and a few apartments on a reliable, but not spectacular, income today in many cities (and suburbs of such) in the US.
  - kelnos 2mo ago
    That doesn't really pass the smell test for me. How do you get this "reliable, but not spectacular" income in one of these places? What are these places?
    - listenallyall 2mo ago
      Go become a plumber or union carpenter in Lansing, Michigan or Birmingham, Alabama or Utica, NY. Median home prices well below $300,000. You must be supremely arrogant to not know cities like these and jobs like these exist.
    - gmadsen 2mo ago
      You can buy a 5 bed 4 bath house in Tulsa, OK for under $400K
      - close04 2mo ago
        OP mentioned 5 properties and 5 children. Taking your suggested budget as reference today we’re talking close to $1.5-2m just in properties alone. That’s 10-20 times the median wealth per adult in the US while supporting a very large family by today’s standards.
        therealdrag0 2mo ago
        I know many software engineers with similar assets, most done have 5 children but they don’t want them either.
- kazinator 2mo ago
  Maybe the secret is in what you print?
lp4v4n 2mo ago
The worst of all is that people will still argue that, in this day and age, labour has not been completely devalued and that you are wealthier than your grandfather. That kind of story was not uncommon at all in the past, today you would have to be a literal multi-millionaire to have that lifestyle.
- listenallyall 2mo ago
  Your point about affording the lifestyle isnt entirely incorrect, but it is skewed by what you choose to include vs ignore. Owning a house? Indeed, grandfather probably had it easier. More space per person in the primary residence? Grandson wins, most likely. Restaurant meals vs home cooked, international travel, ubiquitous air conditioning, threat of being drafted into the military (and actually being deployed!), expected lifespan, dental visit experience, number of sexual partners... I'd bet most grandsons have all of those significantly better than their gainfully-employed grandfathers.
  - andrepd 2mo ago
    In other words: everything to do with economics is worse and everything to do with the inexorable march of progress is better. Yeah sorry but no shit. Technology has progressed since grandpa's day. "TVs are better and cheaper" is not a useful counterpoint when discussing the economy of the 2020s.
    - alt227 2mo ago
      The luxury market has been commoditised. No matter how many billions you have in the bank, you cant get a better netflix subscription, TV, or iPhone than the normal person. This is the 'march of progress' you speak of. The things people wanted and coveted most have been squashed to a market value most people can just afford, and then subsidised with credit plans to make them affordable by all. This is the basics of modern economies. It is not separate to technology progressing. The technology progressing has become the foundation of all modern economies.
      - 2mo ago

close04 2mo ago

> he had 5 children, a house in Daly City and 3 apartments across the street from Dolores park as well as a brand new home in Terra Linda How well would you need to be paid now in any career to support a family like that one while accumulating that wealth already early in life? Careers can evaporate just the same but what they leave behind is vastly different from 60 years ago.

danans 2mo ago
> How well would you need to be paid now in any career to support a family like that one while accumulating that wealth already early in life? The answer is that you don't do it by getting paid (as in exchanging labor for wages). You do it by finding a way to scale your wealth with other people's labor.
- Peaches4Rent 2mo ago
  Aah, so by definition only a select few can do it
  - detourdog 2mo ago
    I would say only a few do it and they are self-selected. The ones that do it have a sense of agency that is lacking in the ones that dont do it. Some people never notice their own agency they believe it comes from outside them.
    - Oras 2mo ago
      It’s not only agency, and it sounds like you do your own thing which is great, but the pressure coming with it is not bearable by many. It’s kind of similar to competitive sport, thousands train and put the effort chasing a wild goose, but only handful make it big. That’s why it raises a question many others: is it really worth it? And for that, I agree with you, it’s self-selected to take the suffering jounrey
      - detourdog 2mo ago
        It is suffering and I'm not sure it is worth it. I didn't notice the suffering until the later stage of life.
    - scott_weber 2mo ago
      Very convenient, if you're someone who benefits from this arrangement, to be able to tell yourself that a brute numerical fact (if you profit off others labour, there must be those whose labour is profited off of) just so happens to by divine coincidence to go hand in hand with the profiteers just happening to have some nebulous quality that morally justifies the whole arrangement.
      - detourdog 2mo ago
        You sound like you may be lacking agency. Agency is simply being aware that one can make decisions for themselves based on their own metrics. . "if you're someone who benefits from this arrangement, to be able to tell yourself that a brute numerical fact". I think this is the root of your confusion. Humans have long demonstrated the pattern of gathering in groups to survive. These groups usually worked out a way to pool resources to increase the chances of living a comfortable life. "(if you profit off others labour, there must be those whose labour is profited off of)" Security markets are open to everyone. There are no restrictions on who can participate. Many companies compensate workers with stock, or other retirement plans that provide ways to buy securities. What you're describing is slavery. Our current systems are trying to move from slavery to at will labor. I find your comment out of touch with our current circumstances. Our current timeline is no different and the security markets is the idea we manifested to create co-operation. Now certainly our timeline is FUBARed. If I wasn't so numb I would weeping everyday at the news but the world is still co-operating. Hard to believe but it could always be worse. "just so happens to by divine coincidence to go hand in hand with the profiteers just happening to have some nebulous quality that morally justifies the whole arrangement." What nebulous quality? Agency is well defined and a term of art in psychology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_%28psychology%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_%28psychology%29
- pj_mukh 2mo ago
  Good faith counter point >>” to scale your wealth with other people's labor” Or you can scale your labor with openly available AI?
  - detourdog 2mo ago
    I found that that stock market is the way to scale income. One can't make big money with just their hands unless they are an artist.
    - jrapdx3 2mo ago
      Very few artists earn a living in art let alone become wealthy. The art world is highly competitive, though real talent and innovation are rare. But making it big in art is more about self-promotion and marketing than artistic ability. So success is only marginally correlated with what they do with their hands, as opposed to what's done with their mouths.
      - detourdog 2mo ago
        The number of artists that succeed is irrelevant to my comment. No one needs to tell me about the life of an Artist or the Art world. My dad was a fine art painter, my mom was a potter, another uncle is a kinetic sculptor, one uncle made pastel's of Sulky races to get by. I have a cousin that was a pioneer in computer graphics attending the Media Lab while it was still in the architecture department. I was raised in the art world by a multi-generational art family. None were wildly successful all managed to make enough for a good life. Farmers, bakers, masseuses, carpenters,... all work with their hands generally only artist can take rubbish and turn it into big money. The criticism of the art world you put forward is very one-dimensional.
        jrapdx3 2mo ago
        Your family certainly has an impressive record of success in the art world. My father was a talented painter but didn't attempt to sell his work. He was an even more talented pianist but rarely performed publicly. My sister is an exceptionally talented painter and sculptor. I encouraged her to put her work out there but never did, a real shame. I'm also an artist, primarily a printmaker. I've made my living otherwise, though my work sells at a modest pace. I know many artists in galleries but only a few earn enough to pay their bills. Artists who do earn a living are good self-promoters of their work or build reputation through family connections to patrons. The shy ones remain unknown. Hardly a "criticism of the art world" just a summation of decades-long observation. For every artist turning rubbish into big money there are many who only turn rubbish into garbage. Perhaps my comments are "one-dimensional", but so is implying that turning rubbish into big money is easy to achieve.
- close04 2mo ago
  That’s the answer to a different question. We were talking about a printer who probably wasn’t acing the stock market in the ‘60s but his salary covered all that. Question stands, if anyone can offer a good equivalence for something similar today.
  - danans 2mo ago
    > Question stands, if anyone can offer a good equivalence for something similar today. Then no, it's not possible for the average worker, largely because the advance of technology raised the bar on labor, requiring more (and increasingly expensive) education, all while that 60s worker and their generation, caught in a Reaganite zeal, pulled up the ladder behind them in housing and destroyed public goods.
roenxi 2mo ago
If you're happy to live life to a 1960s standard, it'd be quite cheap. If I'm interpreting the stats properly [0], he expected to put two children through high school and the other 3 would have been contributing a lot to the family quite early on. It'd also be interesting to check whether it's legal to build the same apartment in Daly City's current regulatory environment because that isn't a given. Plus, the US government at the time was less than half the size of the private sector [1] so we'd expect he was contributing less to dead-weight government projects and corruption. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_104.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_104.10.a... [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Government_Revenue_and_spending_GDP.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=original https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Governme...
- close04 2mo ago
  Obviously I’m interested in the modern equivalent of whatever that man had. If those apartments were on the outskirts of the city, then something equivalent today. If society expected the kids to finish no more than high-school then but university today, then university it is. And I want to understand if there’s any chance to do it the same way with salaried work, not with clever investment over decades, or winning the lottery, or getting an inheritance. Which are all valid ways to have a lot of wealth but don’t tell me the value of salaried work in the US today.
  - roenxi 2mo ago
    The modern equivalent to what the man had is what the man had. You'd need to be paid maybe a bit less to support a family like he had because everything has gotten slightly more efficient over the years. If you want to define things by means and medians, the median worker had a median lifestyle then and a median lifestyle today. If you want much more than he had, you're going to need to pay much more for it. Bit of an obvious one.
    - setopt 2mo ago
      It really isn’t though. The median person in 1963 didn’t need say internet or computers or smartphones, because no one expected them to have one. Good luck even applying for a job today without at least a computer and internet, and possibly a smartphone capable of running very specific apps. Don’t get me wrong, I love my computer, but as the GP indicated the rest of society expect very different things from you today – more equipment, more education, etc. Those things aren’t just increased living standards, they are increased job requirements.
listenallyall 2mo ago
How much wealth? Not really that much if you move to the middle of the country. You're thinking of San Francisco (well, Daly City) of the 2020's, which San Francisco absolutely was not in 1963. Nice place, sure, but still heavily working class, blue-collar and union. You could have 5 kids and a few apartments on a reliable, but not spectacular, income today in many cities (and suburbs of such) in the US.
- kelnos 2mo ago
  That doesn't really pass the smell test for me. How do you get this "reliable, but not spectacular" income in one of these places? What are these places?
  - listenallyall 2mo ago
    Go become a plumber or union carpenter in Lansing, Michigan or Birmingham, Alabama or Utica, NY. Median home prices well below $300,000. You must be supremely arrogant to not know cities like these and jobs like these exist.
  - gmadsen 2mo ago
    You can buy a 5 bed 4 bath house in Tulsa, OK for under $400K
    - close04 2mo ago
      OP mentioned 5 properties and 5 children. Taking your suggested budget as reference today we’re talking close to $1.5-2m just in properties alone. That’s 10-20 times the median wealth per adult in the US while supporting a very large family by today’s standards.
      - therealdrag0 2mo ago
        I know many software engineers with similar assets, most done have 5 children but they don’t want them either.
kazinator 2mo ago
Maybe the secret is in what you print?

lp4v4n 2mo ago

The worst of all is that people will still argue that, in this day and age, labour has not been completely devalued and that you are wealthier than your grandfather. That kind of story was not uncommon at all in the past, today you would have to be a literal multi-millionaire to have that lifestyle.

listenallyall 2mo ago
Your point about affording the lifestyle isnt entirely incorrect, but it is skewed by what you choose to include vs ignore. Owning a house? Indeed, grandfather probably had it easier. More space per person in the primary residence? Grandson wins, most likely. Restaurant meals vs home cooked, international travel, ubiquitous air conditioning, threat of being drafted into the military (and actually being deployed!), expected lifespan, dental visit experience, number of sexual partners... I'd bet most grandsons have all of those significantly better than their gainfully-employed grandfathers.
- andrepd 2mo ago
  In other words: everything to do with economics is worse and everything to do with the inexorable march of progress is better. Yeah sorry but no shit. Technology has progressed since grandpa's day. "TVs are better and cheaper" is not a useful counterpoint when discussing the economy of the 2020s.
  - alt227 2mo ago
    The luxury market has been commoditised. No matter how many billions you have in the bank, you cant get a better netflix subscription, TV, or iPhone than the normal person. This is the 'march of progress' you speak of. The things people wanted and coveted most have been squashed to a market value most people can just afford, and then subsidised with credit plans to make them affordable by all. This is the basics of modern economies. It is not separate to technology progressing. The technology progressing has become the foundation of all modern economies.
    - 2mo ago