The comfortable life is killing us
&gt; &quot;most prosperous time in history&quot;
That is no longer true, at least not here in the US.  the most recent adult generation is now the 2nd or 3rd most prosperous generation and not by such a large margin as everyone thinks.  The thinking goes that since GDP per capita is up and productivity is high, that we are much wealthier but it&#x27;s not true.<p>Even GDP per capita adjusted for PPP can&#x27;t adequately measure wealth because it uses the wrong basket of goods.  if you have a million dollars and you can afford 1000 iphones but a house costs 5 million, then your not wealthy.<p>Wealth is being able to afford the basics of life: Shelter, food and water and by extension: transportation (because you need to get to a job), education (because employers now require it, regardless of whether its useful), and medical insurance because you don&#x27;t want to loose your shelter.<p>Those 6 things are just as expensive as ever, if not more expensive than ever and the average person is less able to afford them, at least in the coastal cities.  Calculate how many hours of work per week it takes to afford shelter.  people work longer hours than ever, and nearly 50% of their salary now goes just towards shelter which equates to 20 to 25 hours a week of work just to afford shelter.  Was that the case 500 years ago?<p>Yes we&#x27;ve come a long way from 500 years ago, undoubedly we can afford much more food with much greater variety than ever.  we eat like kings, dress like kings.  But, still live in shelters we can barely afford.