> you still can't afford to send your kids through college, and still make your house and car payments, replacing your car every year or two. Yes, that was what middle-class people used to do.

Where is this halcyon universe where the median (or even the 75th percentile) American:

* Paid for their children to go to college

* Bought a new car every other year

'Cause that doesn't resemble any point in the past century of the universe we currently inhabit.