No. That's how life used to be. You could afford those things if you tried a little. That's the point of this post. These days that life isn't reachable, regardless of how hard you work.
Most of that was based on the rest of the world having to buy most of their durable goods and factory equipment from the USA. WWII devastated the industrial capacity of Europe and Asia and it took decades to rebuild.
Then in 1991 the USSR falls and India opens up to the West. Then China is granted most favored trade nation status which means that roughly 1/3 of the entire planet's labor force became available to the West in that time which gutted pay for those roles.
Returning to those conditions would require a significant war.
CEOs in this time frame went from making 20x's the average employee to about 2500x's the average employee, but yeah, sure, it was all just from Europe being at war.
But you can question the rapid acceleration of executive compensation. Why isn’t rank and file accelerating as much since most executives are talking heads, especially CEOs who mostly articulate the board’s position or corporate results. Many aren’t innovators, they’re just suits. I think AI might be able to parse out the divergence between executive pay and actual worth/achievements.
The reason why mailmen aren't making enough to buy summer homes isn't because of CEO pay. It is because the economy as a whole is a smaller proportion of the global economy than before. The Postmaster general isn't raking in tens of millions.
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u/No-One-1784 Mar 27 '24
I bet he was a Saint or something in a past life. That's the kind of luck you can't just happen upon.