General Discussion

I'm afraid we boomers have had a LOT to do with the decline, but it really did seem that the good times would roll on indefinitely. We lived in a bubble - I was fortunate to grow up in a wonderful part of the world (SW BCPacific NW) at the absolute zenith of Western civilization, and life was, from this vantage point, embarrassingly easy. For my ex and I, at least. It's not that we were born into money, or were savvy investors, or world-class entertainers, but we didn't live large and had a good combined income.

After being a student forever (it seemed), getting a job as a technical specialist adjacent to the construction industry and making union money, and gf (at the time) working full time, money just piled up. After FINALLY being gainfully employed for less than 2 years, we had a 20% downpayment on a house, so we bought one. As I said....embarrassingly easy.

Those days are long gone, and forever, I'm afraid.