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the only reason I posted this is because the other day I casually mentioned that 'the minimum wage in 1965 was higher than today's mini wage after inflation'. And people said I was crazy. Inflation really pulls the wool over people's eyes and hides a lot doesn't it.

Also, people are very ignorant about unemployment rates. We've had historically high unemployment rates ever since 1970. The unemployment rate today is about 3 times what it was exactly 40 years ago. If you look at a chart of unemployment rates that goes back to 1870 and merely exclude 1930-1945, then you see that unemployment has been very elevated on historical standards since 1970.

As a nation we've imposed cost after cost after cost onto the economy that makes it difficult for us to live and we are ignorant of what we've done. Also, we've become very cold hearted towards the poor. It used to be that if a fellow needed a job, then somebody would make one for that fellow. Not any more.

Some people think that government social programs take care of things. Those programs are dysfunctional. And increasingly the private sector economy is dysfunctional. We've lost 2 million private sector jobs in 2 years and I've actually heard people say that this is normal.

I think you are right on. Maybe my memory is failing but it seems to me that in 1965 if a person made three times the minimum wage he could support a family. Three times today's minimum wage would support a single person perhaps but I think it would be very difficult to for a young man to support a wife and children on it and I live in a low living cost area. My father worked as a carpenter in the fifties and supported my mother and four sons. Admittedly we didn't live like people do today but in my area today a carpenter has zero chance of supporting a wife and four children without any other income. Carpenter's wages here would barely support the carpenter today if he lives in a single wide trailer. I knew people when I was growing up who lived a lifestyle that would be considered poor today and yet they owned a hundred acres of land or more.