This Alex Tabarrok nonsense is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve read recently.

It’s obviously false and the first commenter ably refutes it. In terms economists use to lie about it, I make far more than my grandfather did at the same age. My grandmother did not work, and at one point they owned three houses (none of them for renting out), four cars, a nice boat and raised three kids on a single salary.

The reality once you leave the economist fantasia is that I could not afford to do this even though I make “more” than he did. Not even close. If I tried to simultaneously own three homes, raise three kids, have four cars, all while having other nice things, I’d be bankrupt in mere months.

By the way, my grandfather was not considered rich and was in fact not rich by the standards of the time. For the 1960s and 1970s, this was considered upper middle class. Doing well, but certainly not that abnormal for someone with a college degree in a STEM field (he was a traffic engineer).

Now, you’d probably need to make what, $700,000 a year or more to do what he did? It depends on the COL in an area, but in most that’s what it’d be.

Tabarrok is a fool.