If only...

Only to live during a time where hate and sexism was rampant. Nah, chief, I don't wanna live in that period. I'm good.

They left out the part about getting drafted and sent to Vietnam with that 3rd grade education and risk dying for people that didn't care about you and other that hated you. Then coming home and getting spit on, literally spit on, by the people around you. And no one caring about the damage war caused you.

The ideal life is to be born a multi-millionaire, then earn billions by exploiting workers

I don't think dying at 54 is ideal...

I am so tired of people presuming that US's economic history is somehow universal. all countries have first world economy of western hemisphere, more specifically, the anglosphere. Boy do I love cultural hegemony.

The ideal life is dying when you're only 54? That's pretty bleak!

As long as you're white

being prime military age for the vietnam war? no, please got no

Didn't work for me... in my 1972 bank job interview I was told, "I'd hire you if you were a man, but you're not. If I hired you, you'd just get pregnant and leave." It wasn't against the law for him to say all that.

And for what it's worth I didn't buy a home - a small one-bed flat - until I was in my 40s. Cost me so much I couldn't afford proper furniture. Yes, my current house is worth a lot more than what I paid for it (mainly because I bought a wreck), but so is any other house I could afford if I sold it.

That's... Dying at 54 years of age?

For some my uncle and my dad did these things but also died prematurely from health complications related to Vietnam

Not specific enough. Going by typical evil genie rules you'd be born in 47', but be a poc in like Alabama or Oklahoma. Just in time to get drafted to fight in Vietnam and then have to fight for civil rights at home.

Or you could’ve been sent to Vietnam…

My dad bought about a third of an acre of waterfront property in the 80s with a small cottage on it that we added to. He paid something like $50,000. Guess what a small waterfront property is worth now?

Change the last bit to

Retire in 2001 with a inflation linked final salary pension scheme.

My dad bought his house for $650 in 1976, had it moved from the mill village where it was for $2000 and has lived in it on land he was given for 50 years. Its current value is over $225k.

He offered to sell me a quarter acre for $50k.

So you wouldn't even live to be 60?

My dad was born in 1947. He died a year ago. Lived in my basement for 3 years toward the end, we converted it to a "in-law" suite. Probably spent most of his money on medical bills though because he had an accident that paralyzed half his body.

Anyhow he worked the same job his entire life only worked his way up to middle management at a factory. Prided himself in slacking off his entire career and still did better than I do now and I have to work much harder and have my spouse be employed to pull in what he did alone half-assing it.

So it was different for sure, middle-class was easily achieved if you were a white male. I'd almost say if you were poor you just got very unlucky, were a single mom, or a minority. If you were a white male, you'd really have to be dealt a bad hand in life to not be middle-class.

You have to be at least middle class and "white"/seen as the dominant demographic for this to work out. Just like every other place and time period.

Life for seniors is ok. About to get a tax break on SS benefits. Would be 78 this year. Possible to get another 12 years of senior benefits. Trump was born that year, so things can work out past 2001.

I mean okay but this person would've been a young adult during the Vietnam war and the war on drugs and died at 53 to avoid the war on terror.

The bio of old television personalities is always that they took a wrong turn into the BBC reception and got hired on the spot.

Impress them with a firm handshake.

This is basically my dad