In 1970, I returned to college after four years in the USAF.

[dugog55]

2. It is refreshing to see a fellow Boomer admit

that things were much better/easier for us at that young age than kids have it now. It infuriates me when older people say the kids just don't want to work and are unwilling to put in the time to make their lives better. Practically every facet of life is stacked against the last two generations. I graduated in '72, and I would say only half the class went to college. Good paying union steel worker jobs and other employment was only an application away. Those that didn't go to school were probably married by the age of 21, had a decent job, bought a house and maybe even had some kids. Health care came free (or almost) anywhere you worked, or if you had to get it yourself it was inexpensive. In 1973 I was working part time at UPS loading the delivery trucks, hours 3AM to 8:30. I had full health care, a weeks vacation and was making $6.25. I moved to Pennsylvania to catch up with my parents that had moved there the previous year. Knowing I would be without health insurance I went to an in town small insurer. I got a full coverage policy for three months, $42. Not a month, total. Four weeks later I got appendicitis. I spent three days in the hospital from the appendectomy, total cost of the surgery and the three hospital days was $465. I did not pay a penny.

Right now, if that happened to someone, they would probably have medical debt for years. I'm not saying everything was better then, but Reagan basing the economy and everyday life on the cutthroat, bottom line capitalism, and worship of the stock market, eventually destroyed how life should be for average Americans.