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  1. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    Re: migration, I thought this interactive map was fascinating. It shows who is moving where. http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/migration-moving-wealthy-interactive-counties-map.html?preload=39099 What's interesting about this thread, besides the historical goodies, is that many factors...
  2. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    I imagine he put some cash into the house, too. And maybe some sweat equity. It's easy to forget in a boom that you take a risk doing that sort of thing. What's the phrase--flips that flop? I remember reading about someone--maybe in Dale Carnegie's How to Stop Worrying and Start Living--who...
  3. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    Another difference in the attitude of home ownership is debt, or treating the house like a piggy bank. Those radio ads a few years ago imploring people to "get the cash out of your house!" drove me crazy. You just have to put it back in--with interest. However, I think the consequences of...
  4. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    My dad's parents left their homestead in Wyoming to work in the shipyards in Washington. (And my mother's maiden name translates to a shipwright who finishes the wood.) I know, and know of, ordinary Janes and Joes who bought or built their own houses from the early 1900s to the 1950s. (These...
  5. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    My grandfather didn't build his own house, but bought a small house and added a bathroom and built the kitchen cupboards from scratch.
  7. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    Maybe my family is unusual. My 80-year-old mother and former farm girl says she never knew anyone who ever inherited a house. When the parents died, the house was sold and the proceeds divided among the kids, who'd long since moved on. In her words, "we got our houses the hard way."
  8. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    Real estate is cheaper in rural areas, too. Some of the southern states, which are pretty much rural, had low home ownership rates, though--I don't know what the story is there.
  9. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    Here's a table from the U.S. Census Bureau showing percentage of home ownership since 1940 by state: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/owner.html It looks like home ownership for the U.S. as a whole has been at least 45% for most of the 20th century. Part of the...
  10. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    I've heard the recommendation to avoid taking on a mortgage that is more than two to two-and-a-half years' income. I think that's a good idea. As for where a person of today would fit in the society of yesterday, that's very difficult if not impossible to say. Considering that lifestyles have...
  11. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    Certain housing markets were hotbeds of speculation here, too.
  13. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    When you take every factor into account, what you end up with is that the $4,000 house now costs...$300,000. What's interesting for me is to see how people lived in other times and to try to figure out WHY changes have taken place. Certain things go down in price because of technology and...
  14. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    You can compare the price of a house with wages. Using median income of $2,410 per year in 1944, the $4,000 house cost 20 months' income. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income was $52,029 in 2008. The house now selling for $300,000 now costs 69 months' income. (That's...
  15. Paisley

    Who needs four-wheel drive? Offroading in the Golden Era.

    I think the 4WD fad has more to do with the tax deduction for vehicles over a certain weight than traction and control. I really do prefer my sedan over an SUV: I can lock up my shopping bags out of sight in the trunk, there's a smaller cabin to heat and cool, it goes very well in the snow, and...
  16. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    Wild West enthusiasts could move to Detroit. There's the crime, of course, and maybe the necessity of digging your own well and putting up a windmill: Downsizing Detroit also presents political obstacles. Officials must identify neighborhoods whose city services would be withdrawn and whose...
  17. Paisley

    Black armbands for mourning... when did that stop?

    Black Armbands: Then and Now From Etiquette by Emily Post, 1940: The necessities of business and professional affairs, which make withdrawal into seclusion impossible, have also made it entirely correct for a man to go into mourning by the simple expedient of putting a black band on his hat...
  19. Paisley

    Time's Top 10 Things We Miss About the Mad Men Era

    Hmmm. I've taken two trips by air in the past year, coach class, and haven't experienced any feeling of being treated like livestock. People at the airport were helpful when I needed directions and when I needed to mail a pocket knife back to my house. The people at Southwest bundled up my...
  20. Paisley

    Time's Top 10 Things We Miss About the Mad Men Era

    I'd take cheap air travel over attractive stewardesses.
  21. Paisley

    Craigslist, anybody have luck there?

    That's where I found the treadmill I bought for my dog. It was way cheaper--and way smaller, which was good--than those for sale at retail stores.
  22. Paisley

    Finances in the Golden Era and today

    The U.S. Census document that I linked to in post #8 includes contributions from members of the armed forces in their income figures (see p. 3, item #8). However, the sample did not include actual members of the armed forces, so we're looking at money that was sent home. It's worth keeping in...
  23. Paisley

    The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars of All Time

    Especially not Jack Nicholson. I always think of him in The Shining.

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