We started on this ride we are on after the Great Depression and WWII. After we built up a huge debt that time we emerged to a great standard of living.  We earned enough so a man could feed and provide for his family while his  wife could tend to the home and raise the kids.  That lasted about 20 years but in the 70s, women found they needed to go to work outside the home and bring in some cash to provide for a “standard of living”. By the 80s even that was not enough so we needed to inflate the price of homes and use the equity to supplement that family income to achieve a “standard of living. “  That worked for a while but soon we needed more so the banks came to the rescue with credit card debt that was available easily to all.  Credit cards were used to build up huge deficits so the middle class could all have a standard of living. Then the crash of 2008 caused the standards to all change. The home equity vanished, the credit card issuers were retrenching and one of the two income earners in the family was likely to be unemployed.  Back to 1950.

Since 1950 we have allowed our standards to increase at a steady pace. If each of us went back to the standards of 1950 we would do fine.  That means a black and white 13 inch TV for the family instead of three 42-inch color plasma TV’s.  One car instead of two would be the norm and we would move back to the city where we would be close to the job.  The food you would eat would be fresh, not processed and liver once a week would stretch the budget too!  You could throw out the cell phone and the $50 a month bill and replace it with one land line connected to one phone ON A PARTY LINE.    We would go back to seeing clothes flapping in the breeze and you would be happy if you had a washing machine in the house.   I think you get the idea.

There are so many improvements in our standard of living today that we do not appreciate. We may be making some changes back toward 1950 and all be happier and better off for it.  In 1950 there were many retailers and many fewer chains and department stores.  There were no malls but downtowns were flourishing.  We look at malls struggling that might be signaling a reversion  toward 1950 retailing. Certainly we will not revert back 50 years but it may be worthwhile to consider this scenario as you look at your own situation and try to adapt to a changing customer base. For example, rentals of expensive items might get more popular. Although we may not be moving back to 13 inch black and white TV’s; we may be going back to one family TV instead of several scattered throughout the house.  Might not be all bad!