# 2011: Economic growth to hit 3-4%! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 30, 2010, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890 "2010-12-30T23:38:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/141 "2011-01-05T20:52:11Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Yeah, sorry. 2001. Arthur C. Clarke promised us moonbases, sentient computers and crazy alien monoliths, and all we got was [Pets.com](http://Pets.com). Blame it on Kubrick. 😃 However, read “Voices From the Sky,” a collection of articles on telecommunications. He got that stuff pretty much spot on. One daring prediction, from 1960 or so, was that long distance would vanish as a separate category, and call distance wouldn’t matter. > [@](#): > > That’s not how I remember it. I remember lots of talk of ‘putting money in the pockets of American families’ so they would go out and spend it. The tax cuts for the rich were because Bush was also a supply-sider. The whole package was basically a compromise - supply-side tax cuts for the Republicans, in exchange for demand-side tax cuts for the poor and middle class promoted by the Democrats. The one-time rebate check, that was reduced with increasing income, would be a better example of a Keynesian solution. However you just undercut your argument - if the Keynesian policy was done because the Dems wanted it, you can’t say that Bush was motivated by it. It was also politically necessary to give something to the non-rich, but I don’t think that counts either. > [@](#): > > Agreed on all counts. So why do you believe that this time the government will get its financial house in order once the crisis has passed? The stage is set for a long, slow recovery and a new equilibrium with higher unemployment rates. As long as that exists, there’s never going to be a time when the Democrats say, “Hey, this would be a good time to slow down job creation and growth and start tackling that deficit problem.” Especially not if it requires actual, significant cuts in the size of government. The reason I’m hopeful is that Dems are not in nearly as much as an ideological straitjacket as Republicans. They are not against cutting spending in principle, only spending that helps people. No problem at all in cutting the extra money private insurers got for supplying Medicare benefits, for example. Therefore they have many more degrees of freedom. California is a local example. Dems want to fix the budget by both spending cuts and tax increases, while Republicans refuse in general to consider any tax increases at all. And, a recovering economy automatically reduces spending in terms of unemployment and welfare payments and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/142 "2011-01-05T20:52:52Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 😕 😕 No one expects all economists to be intimately familiar with the economic systems of ancient Mesopotamia, but you might want to refresh your knowledge of the 1990’s if you intend to debate American economics. 😕 😕 > (And what’s with the Clarke snark? He predicted communication satellites.) I was referring to 2001: A Space Odyssey, since we were talking about 2001. And it was a _joke_. I wasn’t snarking on Clarke. Geez. Although ‘Snark on Clarke’ would make a great Dr. Seuss book. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/143 "2011-01-05T20:55:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I was referring to 2001: A Space Odyssey, since we were talking about 2001. And it was a _joke_. I wasn’t snarking on Clarke. Geez. And, like any good engineer, Clarke slipped the schedule in **3001**. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/144 "2011-01-05T21:07:20Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > I note you’re not disputing the fact that you have a long and storied history of dissembling, stretching facts, making things up etc. Excellent. Knock it off, **Dick Dastardly** , or else take it to the BBQ Pit. You’ve been warned about this before. In this forum you can’t insult people and you can’t call them liars. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/145 "2011-01-05T21:20:28Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Blame it on Kubrick. 😃 However, read “Voices From the Sky,” a collection of articles on telecommunications. He got that stuff pretty much spot on. One daring prediction, from 1960 or so, was that long distance would vanish as a separate category, and call distance wouldn’t matter. I’ve read it. And I’m a fan of Clarke’s. I was just making a joke. > [@](#): > > The one-time rebate check, that was reduced with increasing income, would be a better example of a Keynesian solution. However you just undercut your argument - if the Keynesian policy was done because the Dems wanted it, you can’t say that Bush was motivated by it. It was also politically necessary to give something to the non-rich, but I don’t think that counts either. Maybe I was imprecise. I meant that the tax cut package of 2001 was motivated by the desire to stimulate the economy by encouraging spending. That’s the classic Keynesian prescription. The tax cut of 2003 had more supply-side elements in it, but both were sold by the Bush administration in part as a stimulus to the economy. I specifically remember him talking about how putting money in the pockets of working families would result in more consumer spending, which would help the economy recover. That’s Keynesian stimulus, even if he didn’t call it that. Here’s liberal David Ignatius, writing about the 2001 tax cuts in [The Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=digest&contentId=A59814-2001Aug24): > [@](#): > > **Bush: Raising Keynes** > > “We are all Keynesians now,” the conservative economist Milton Friedman once famously remarked. > > For proof that Keynes truly reigns supreme, all you had to do last week was watch President George W. Bush hawking his tax cut as a cure for the global economic slowdown. Bush made his remarks at a motorcycle plant – hardly a Keynesian venue – but the British economics sage himself couldn’t have put the argument for fiscal stimulus any better. > … > What should policymakers do in this situation to revive investment, employment and consumer demand? The answer given by generations of “Keynesians” is fiscal stimulus by the government – tax cuts or deficit spending that will put more money in the hands of the public and thereby stimulate aggregate demand and investment. > > That’s what Bush has been doing, with his tax cut and rebate and – perhaps by accident – it turns out to be precisely the right policy. Anyone who bleats about the effect of this fiscal stimulus on the future budget surplus or the Social Security trust fund is, in my view, missing the point. We have a spreading economic crisis, and right now “saving Social Security” is a secondary worry. > > The reason I’m hopeful is that Dems are not in nearly as much as an ideological straitjacket as Republicans. They are not against cutting spending in principle, only spending that helps people. No problem at all in cutting the extra money private insurers got for supplying Medicare benefits, for example. Therefore they have many more degrees of freedom. California is a local example. Dems want to fix the budget by both spending cuts and tax increases, while Republicans refuse in general to consider any tax increases at all. And, a recovering economy automatically reduces spending in terms of unemployment and welfare payments and the like. Here’s [Michael Kinsley](http://www.slate.com/id/99853/) writing in _Slate_ in 2001: > [@](#): > > …In pushing his tax cut as a short-term fix for an economic slowdown, Bush stamps himself as a Keynesian of the most old-fashioned, micromanaging sort. If that is his principled conclusion after rereading Keynes’ General Theory, so be it, and hats off to him, because it could be politically costly. Once you claim to be driving the car, you are responsible for where it goes. I could go on. Google ‘Bush Keynesian’, and use Google’s filters to limit the results to pre-2005. You’ll find a huge collection of various articles talking about Bush turning into a Keynesian. To be fair, you’ll also find liberal critiques that too much of the stimulus was aimed at the wealthy - especially in the debate over the 2003 tax cut. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/146 "2011-01-05T21:48:49Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > They found that an EXOGENOUS tax increase of 1% reduced GDP by 3%. My understanding is that by exogenous, they mean the money gets taxed by government but is not spent by government. For example, if we increased taxes, to reduce the deficit so that we are taking money out of the system without putting back into the the system somewhere else, then that wold have the effects you are talking about. It doesn’t mean that redistributive taxation is bad for the economy. Forgot to respond to this earlier. Exogenous in the context of the Romer/Romer paper does not mean what you think it does. The Romers identified two types of tax changes - one is a tax change intended to rectify an ailing economy, and the other is a tax change that is made for ideological or other reasons having nothing to do with the current performance of the economy. The latter type are ‘exogenous’ changes. Their thinking was that the first type of tax change necessarily comes along at a time when many factors in the economy are already changing, and therefore it becomes very hard to sort out the actual effect of the tax change from the underlying changes the economy was going through anyway. So they thought that if they analyzed just the subset of tax changes that were made in the context of an economy that wasn’t over or under performing, they’d be better able to measure the effects of the tax cut (this is essentially just a way to hold as many other variables constant as possible). Exogenous tax changes can take several forms - one is simply a ‘good government’ type of change - for example, Canada’s decision to cut the corporate tax rate in half during a period of good, stable economic performance, because it was thought that this would improve our trade and world competitiveness. An exogenous tax increase could be an increase in the marginal rate for ideological reasons (i.e. to make the wealthy pay their ‘fair share’). The luxury tax might be an example of that. Another form of exogenous tax change would be one aimed at reducing the deficit when the economy is performing well. The Romers found that this type of analysis turned in very strong results, and passed various tests for robustness with flying colors. And the result they found was that exogenous tax increases of 1% decreased economic growth by 3%, but if those taxes were done for the purpose of reducing the deficit or the debt, the effect vanished and the tax increases were ‘free’. That could be why Clinton’s tax increase in 1993 didn’t hurt the economy - it coincided with falling deficits and ultimately surpluses. Had he raised taxes and used the money to increase government spending without attacking the deficit, the result might have been much different. The implications of their results are many: One is that it would seem that deficits are seen by the economy as an implied tax - if a tax increase that reduces the deficit has no effect on the economy, but one that doesn’t reduce the deficit has a large negative effect, then it would seem the shrinking the deficit exactly offsets tax increases, making them roughly equivalent. This is not necessarily an argument against Keynesian borrowing, because Keynesian stimulus tax cuts were specifically not considered by the Romers in their paper. But it does provide some evidence that borrowing money has a bigger negative impact on the economy than Keynesians would like. Not conclusive evidence, but at least a data point. The other implication is that on average, when the economy is performing nominally you want low taxes and small government for peak performance - at least within the range of tax rates the Romers looked at. That doesn’t mean you want no taxes or no government - but that for the average country with a typical government size, it woudl be better to reduce taxes and government somewhat than to increase them. These last two suggestions are not in their paper - they’re what I get out of it, and I recognize that it’s not definitive. I would say these conclusions are suggestive, and would warrant further study to see if they can be validated. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/147 "2011-01-05T21:51:05Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And, like any good engineer, Clarke slipped the schedule in **3001**. The marketing guys probably added more features to the project. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/148 "2011-01-05T22:24:07Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I could go on. Google ‘Bush Keynesian’, and use Google’s filters to limit the results to pre-2005. You’ll find a huge collection of various articles talking about Bush turning into a Keynesian. To be fair, you’ll also find liberal critiques that too much of the stimulus was aimed at the wealthy - especially in the debate over the 2003 tax cut. It is interesting that the Ignatius quote does not consider the structure of the tax cut. He was clearly wrong in calling it effective and in saying that the impact on the deficit was unimportant. Was he wrong because Keynesian remedies don’t work, or because this one was not a good remedy? I certainly don’t deny that Bush talked about putting money in the hands of the working class. Right after a close election he was not going to say anything else. The real question is whether the tax cuts were designed using Keynesian principles, or designed using “tax cuts are good” principles and marketed as Keynesian. Remember, the cut was structured so that there was a spike at average income levels, so they could show what a good break the average American was getting. A true demand-oriented cut would not have needed to do that. At this point all but the most extreme deficit hawks admit that tax cuts and deficit spending stimulate the economy during a recession. If this makes them all followers of Keynes, perhaps we can just say that Bush was an incompetent follower of Keynes. After all, even creationists accept microevolution (whatever that really means) today - that does not make them skilled biologists. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/149 "2011-01-05T22:28:29Z")
> [@HRoark43](#): > > Aren’t there enough churches and charities for those who lack the skills to earn a living? There’s a lot of churches and charities. Notice that there are still lots of poor people? ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/150 "2011-01-06T06:35:56Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Just out of curiosity, do you know what plagiarism is? It seems that you think that if you can find any ‘right wing’ site that makes the same general points that I do, then I’m ‘plagiarizing’ them. If that’s the case, then every person on this board who ever posts a general political talking point or agrees with the points made by say, Media Matters for America, is guilty of plagiarism. > > For your own information, plagiarism is the direct theft of someone else’s writing, copied verbatim, while claiming personal attribution. > > You say I posted material ‘almost verbatim’. Please give an example. Don’t just drop links - post a paragraph of mine that you believe is an ‘almost verbatim’ copy of someone else’s - close enough that it’s clear that I stole the material and called it my own. You accused me of cutting and pasting other material without attribution. Prove it by showing the source material and mine. > > If you can’t do that, I expect an apology. You accused me of intellectual theft. Back it up. > > And no, I don’t agree with the other claims you make about me. I specifically brought up plagiarism because it’s directly testable. I’ll let the other participants in those threads decide whether I’m ‘dissembling’ or not. > > And would you please take these stupid personal attacks to the pit? I see you’re making up your own definition of plagiarism too. I’m going to leave it at that. I can’t be bothered to start a oooh you’re a plagiarist, oooh no I’m not thread. It is what it is. And of course you don’t have a much-remarked-upon-on-this-board history of dissembling etc. Oh no. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/151 "2011-01-06T06:55:48Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > And of course you don’t have a much-remarked-upon-on-this-board history of dissembling etc. Oh no. This is a formal warning: when a staffer tells you to stop posting insults and accusations that someone else is a liar, you need to stop. ---
**Author:** ![HRoark43](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/bc8723/32.png) [@HRoark43](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HRoark43)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/152 "2011-01-06T21:35:36Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > That is absolutely wrong. The rich have been pulling away from the pack for years. the gap between the rich and the middle class has been widening for decades. But more people have been getting rich than have been getting poor. That’s why the middle class is shrinking. And why do we even need a middle class? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/153 "2011-01-06T21:43:50Z")
> [@HRoark43](#): > > But more people have been getting rich than have been getting poor. That’s why the middle class is shrinking. And why do we even need a middle class? So you want a society of haves and have-nots? Or do you really believe that everyone can occupy the top? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/154 "2011-01-06T23:13:52Z")
Is that the correct way to think of society? If the ‘poor’ are materially better off than were the middle class 40 years ago, is it still a useful distinction? The middle class in America in 1960 had a home that averaged 900 square feet. They had one car that wouldn’t even be considered safe to drive if made today, and which lacked most of the features found on today’s entry-level vehicles. They had a black and white TV maybe 14" in size, and were lucky if they had a washer and dryer. They didn’t have microwaves, self-cleaning ovens, dishwashers, etc. They had one telephone, and long distance was so expensive that people used it rarely and then watched the clock carefully when talking to someone. Their families were bigger, but they typically only had one bathroom. Etc. Today, the average ‘poor’ person in America has a cell phone, a computer, a big screen TV, air conditioning, washer/dryer, dishwasher, microwave, a car (sometimes two), and many other amenities either not available to even the middle class of 1960 or very expensive. And I’m not talking just about technology - I’m talking about real purchasing power. For example, access to fresh fruits and vegetables is better for the ‘poor’ today than it was for many members of the middle class in the 1960’s. The ‘middle class’ is not a hard and fast description of quality of life. It’s a political construct. It means different things to different people, and it’s always changing depending on the goals of the political class and political activists. If we were to define middle class in terms of access to basic amenities and luxuries, then the middle class today would be much bigger than it was even 20 years ago. If we define it in terms of purchasing power, then it’s still bigger than it was in the past - in constant dollars, the median household income was $40,000 in 1965, and it’s $50,000 today. That doesn’t even take into account the increased purchasing power due to the improvement in quality of goods. That’s just raw income corrected for inflation. It’s only when you start defining it in terms of current income compared to other classes that you can find a case for it getting smaller. But even then, there are all kinds of nuances that change the conclusion. For example, shouldn’t you consider benefits, vacation time, and retirement age? How about leisure time? Access to automated appliances means housework is a fraction of what it used to be, and really shrinks one of the big distinctions between the middle class and the wealthy class - access to servants. Today we all have servants. This one factor alone really shrinks the real-world differences between the rich and poor - in the past, the poor and middle classes spent a huge amount of time on menial labor around the house that the rich didn’t have to endure. That gap is much smaller now. Should you look at pre-tax or after-tax income? Taxes on the lower middle class and the poor have been declining for a long time. The middle class is often determined based on Education, job type and income compared to other classes. For example, The lower middle class is often defined as being comprised of semi-skilled laborers with slightly below median income - for example, craftsmen or technicians with 2-year diplomas. The upper middle class would be educated working professionals - engineers, job foremen, chemists, lawyers, etc. They would have above-average incomes. “The poor” are often determined to be people with low educations working in non-professional occupations and requiring government transfer payments to maintain their modest standard of living. It’s these kinds of categories that are breaking down. You can now find bus drivers making $100,000 per year, and lawyers making $35,000 per year. Government transfer payments have moved up well into the middle classes. There may be more job stability for a Wal-Mart worker than for a computer programmer. More and more professionals are working on contract, meaning they have no employer-provided retirement benefits, while a public sector blue collar worker may have a retirement plan that a private sector professional could only dream about. So when people say the middle class is shrinking, you have to ask them to define the terms before you can even tell whether their claim is true. And then you have to ask whether the distinction even matters in today’s world. It might be better to drop the labels and just talk about the real problems people face rather than defining everything in terms of class. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/155 "2011-01-07T20:29:43Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Actually, he might be right on this. > [CNN](http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9812/11/flame.thrower.car/) > [BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/232777.stm) > Both from 1998 > [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/horrors/robbery/carjack.asp)(about carjacking in general in SA.) > I’ve searched around and haven’t found anything that says different. > It’s mentioned on several security/alarm sites. > Even checked The Onion. Yeah, I’m aware that it _existed_. [But it hasn’t been sold since 2001](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_%28flamethrower%29), because of piss-poor sales, several legislative challenges and the fear that it would just lead to hijackers shooting first, from a safe distance. And, despite what you may read in that Wikipedia article, flamethrowers _are_ actually regarded as dangerous (and hence illegal) weapons in SA, per Schedule 1 of the Notice No. 30717 relating to the Dangerous Weapons Act (1968). Also, would probably fail a constitutional test. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2011, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/156 "2011-01-07T20:56:43Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > How about leisure time? Access to automated appliances means housework is a fraction of what it used to be… Not so fast, there, bucko. There are lots of studies showing that the time spent on housework remained constant for pretty much the who of the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2011, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/157 "2011-01-07T20:57:45Z")
Let’s talk about houses. My father was solidly middle class. As a WW II veteran with a high school degree only, he was able to buy a 3 bedroom house, 2 baths, with a large basement. The basement was unfinished originally but quite usable. I don’t know the size but well above 900 sq ft. The house was in a new development, and was no special deal. It was roughly equivalent in size to the house I could afford in 1985 as a Bell Labs manager with a PhD, and making a lot more money than my father did relatively speaking. In 1960 we had a black and white TV, maybe two. We did not have a color TV but little broadcasting was done in color. It was about the same as 3-D TVs today. We had a washer and drier, as did all my friends. The vacuum cleaner we had was not much different from the one I used before I got a Roomba. We didn’t call my aunt in California very much, but we wrote letters - we had time to. The biggest difference between then and today is that back then the middle class or lower middle class did not live in fear of losing it all the moment they were unemployed. People did get laid off - my uncle worked for the defense industry as an engineer, and it happened to him often enough that he got fed up and became a teacher. I would never trade my lower middle class life style of 1960 for a poor lifestyle today. Now way, no how, not for all the cellphones in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2011, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/158 "2011-01-07T21:02:23Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Not so fast, there, bucko. There are lots of studies showing that the time spent on housework remained constant for pretty much the who of the 20th century. True. I’m having a hard time thinking of ways in which my mother did more housework in 1960 than we do today - with the exception that our Roomba does actually save time. Microwave frozen vegetables are slightly faster than cans or boiled frozen vegetables, but besides that dinner was no different. Perhaps Sam is confusing the 1900 house with the 1960 house? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2011, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/159 "2011-01-07T21:27:33Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Let’s talk about houses. My father was solidly middle class. As a WW II veteran with a high school degree only, he was able to buy a 3 bedroom house, 2 baths, with a large basement. > [@Voyager](#): > > True. I’m having a hard time thinking of ways in which my mother did more housework in 1960 than we do today - with the exception that our Roomba does actually save time. My family was the same. When my Dad came home from Korea and got an entry level job in the defense industry, they bought a 3 bedroom tract home in an LA suburb. Probaly closer to 2000sf. Another important distinction; in those days, _they did it on one income_, in most cases. I could count on one finger the moms in my neighborhood that worked outside the home. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/160 "2011-01-07T21:42:10Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > True. I’m having a hard time thinking of ways in which my mother did more housework in 1960 than we do today - with the exception that our Roomba does actually save time. Microwave frozen vegetables are slightly faster than cans or boiled frozen vegetables, but besides that dinner was no different. Perhaps Sam is confusing the 1900 house with the 1960 house? Our Roomba saved my wife time, but overall probably wasted lots, because every week I’d have to take the damn thing apart to remove miles of her hair that was wrapped around the brush. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890.md?page=7)