&gt; the price of beans, CPUs and clothes may have fallen - but the price of education, healthcare, energy and especially housing have not fallen<p>Over what time period do you mean?  I&#x27;m pretty sure just about everything has a lower cost than it did 50 years ago, with the exception of real estate in neighborhoods where the population density has soared.  If you don&#x27;t insist on living in one of those neighborhoods, you can life that is better than what you&#x27;d have had in 1965 <i>in every respect</i> and spend less time working to support that lifestyle than you would have spent at that time for the inferior quality of life.