[at-l] OT: Humor - with apologies to Ryan

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

With apologies to Ryan for continuing this...

At 10:13 PM 2/3/2004 -0500, Shelly Hale wrote:
>Kel, I'll add some humor...after all, tis the season...LOL
>
>Isn't this amazing?
>TAXES
> > >Accounts Receivable Tax
>...clip...
> > >Workers Compensation Tax
>
>Did I miss any??!!??
>
>Ya know, not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was 
>the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, had the 
>largest middle class in the world and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
>What the hell happened?

Here's "what the hell happened" 
<http://www.dushkin.com/text-data/articles/28985/28985.pdf>. Remember that 
100 years ago there was no Interstate Highway system, in fact there were 
few paved roads <http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/films/horatio.html> in much of 
the country. I have my grandfather's diary from the year he was courting my 
grandmother which just happens to have been 1904. At this time of year he 
rented a horse and sleigh to go from Watertown, NY to Champion, NY for the 
weekend, a distance of 12 miles. Despite being middle class of his era (he 
was a custom tailor), he couldn't afford to keep a horse of his own. He had 
no car, no phone, no refrigerator, not even a radio (he built his own 
crystal set several years around 1910).

The average life span was over 27 years less for men and over 31 years less 
for women than today's average. The average workweek was almost half again 
what it is today (60 hours vs 44) and nearly 6 times (in real numbers, not 
percentages) as many workers died in industrial accidents despite the 
population being only a about 1/3 today's. More than 22 times (as a 
percentage) as many people died in auto accidents as today. Over a third of 
us still lived on farms. Today only about 6% live on farms. Only a few went 
to high school much less college. Mom had little choice about staying home, 
she couldn't even vote. There was no Internet, there was no AT to hike and 
no place like AT-L to post cheap shots that don't take into account the 
fact that we live in an entirely different and far more interdependent 
society than our ancestors. Before leaping on comparisons like this I 
strongly recommend doing some research to see what you are comparing. In 
this case it is apples and oranges. If we went back to 1904 most of those 
list members over the age of 50 would already be dead. Oh, I almost forgot, 
there *was* a National debt in 1900. Yes, it was smaller but so were our 
opportunities.

Saunterer (apologetically getting off his soap box and very happy to be on 
this end of the century, taxes and all)