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Are families doing better under the two income, both working parent reality we are in?

Both parents are doing this because they have 3 SUVs, a lakehouse, season tickets, DVDs, and major 4-year universities to pay for now. No family is required to have both parents working the last time I checked. Mine didn't.

You think every or even most two income families have that kind of stuff ? Every two income family I know is just trying not to fall behind their parents.

Owning a house in a major metropolitan area requires two incomes. Period. That wasn't true 40 years ago. It is now.

I may be coming from a skewed perspective then. My dad made $14k a year working as a machinist. Our house cost $23k. The same house 27 years later costs $340k. One would need the equivalent of a $200,000 salary to afford the property at the same rate. There are no SUV's involved. There are no lakehouses, season tickets.

This was a 1150 square foot house to give you an idea of how small and insignifigant it was, but it was where I grew up. My dad, the machinist could buy it, with no high school education, and not sweat the mortgage payments. I could buy it now... and be in debt up to my ears, and have my wife work while our kids are growing up. If you believe that this is all about SUV's, you are mistaken. The manufacturing economy died in Southern California. We are paying the concequences in the urban black and hispanic areas. There was a burgeoning black, working class family section of town. It collapsed as soon as the manufacturing jobs did.

Whoop dee doo I know. Time for more of your smart alec remarks. Spare me. People are hurting out there. I am fine. My father won't be. He is a Boeing subcontractor, and they are laying off, and building in China. No biggie for you. But for a man who immigrated to this country, served in Vietnam, and has worked his tail off for 40 years, early retirement isn't going to be pretty.

You and your lawyer buddy OPH, are not being effective with your taunting btw. People out there are in pain with job cuts, reductions. Even if you think that this is the correct way of the market, and that we will grow in other areas, mocking those in pain, and those who though you may feel misguided are concered about that pain, well frankly sucks. Not every person is cut of the same whole cloth. I agree with you on several things non related to trade. I am not a fan of Pat Buchanan. I was for the war in Iraq. It's much easier for you though to belittle, stereotype. Just something to think about.