Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Is it really sustaining the status quo? Take a look at how much you spend for incidentals and discretionary spending before you talk about sustaining the status quo. You can live just like people did back in the 50's and 70's.

Back in the 50's people didn't spend $150 a month on cable TV. TV was free. It still is if you use over the air aerial antennae. That's $1,800 a year. What you need to be able to watch Sookie and all her crazy antics? Or hear Jon Stewart tell you about the Fear Rally?

Back in the 70's you didn't spend $150 a month on a family plan for telecommunications. You had one phone and maybe it cost you $20 a month. Calls to neighboring hamlets, villages, and counties may be toll and you'd pay a small fee to access them, which may be more that calling intrastate or even interstate. International? $1-$5 a minute if you called person to person on a trunk line. Now I can call London for as little as $.05 a minute. Landlines now cost over $60 a month PLUS everyone has a cellphone at about $150 a month for a family plan for 4. $2,520 a year.

The rise of casual dining Applebee's, Chili's, Red Lobster et. al. are put out there because they make money. People don't eat dinner at home as often as they did in the 50's and 70's. Having grown up in the 70's I can tell you we went out to dinner 1 time a week. I was recently at Red Lobster and for 1 mixed drink, 1 soda, 1 mussels appetizer, and 2 entrees it was $90 including a 15% gratuity. I was quite shocked since I haven't been to a Red Lobster in many years and I could have gotten much better quality food and service from a local place here in NYC for 1/2 of that price.

Darden Restaurants who owns Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Long Horn Steakhouse, and other casual dining restaurants had a revenue of $7.22 billion in FY08. Projected annual spend for middle incomes is about $1,500. McDonald's in comparison had a revenue of $22.6 billion.

I'm not even going to start on durable goods that people purchase like computers, TVs, refrigerators etc. Many people I know don't have just one of these but have multiples. Back in the 50s through the 70s it was common to just have one if you had any at all.