If you are late seventies you were earning income BEFORE the rampant expansion of hidden scam taxes. Thus you had money left over to save and spend wisely. Young people today are not as much to blame as everyone seems to think. Their money is taxed away before they ever have a chance to even have something to save.
I’m in my early seventies and when my wife and I eat a meal out the sales tax we pay is MORE than the entire cost of the meal PLUS sales tax would have been fifty years ago. A family could have lived very well in 1965 on the tax that my wife and I pay now. Sales tax in this state has more than doubled since I became an adult, the state income tax is seven percent with many people who pay NO federal income tax paying that rate on much of their income. This is in a so-called “low tax” state and I have not even mentioned the “scam” taxes which are unconscionable. It is long past time for a tax revolt, taxation without representation is far more of a burden now than when that was the battle cry of the revolution. Now we have to pay the so-called representatives but they only represent their own interests.
Our tax rates under LBJ and Carter were on the high side.
We live in Californicator land where hidden scam taxes were invented and new ones come up every day or get voted on by the idiots. Those taxes now equal our property taxes and come on the same billing twice a year. Our state income tax is high. Our state income taxes and license fees for so many things are very costly.
Every younger and not so young person, who has troubles saving and ask for advice, refuse to give up their Daily Starbuck Habit and their IPhone with very high monthly rates. They sneer at our Android phones and Tracfone low rates. They often refuse to shop at Walmart and or Costco.
Then they say they don’t have money left to save or donate to Free Republic and their church if they go.