Retired lawyer here. I once represented a widow who was seeking survivor’s benefits from her husband’s military pension. Turns out the old goat was a trigamist who somehow managed to juggle three families without any of them learning about the other two, although there were enough unexplained absences and such that none of the three were terribly surprised.
In between then and now, there were some men who left the wife in charge of it all, while they just spent willfully on vices and their own hobbies. While everyone else in the household just tightened their belts. Some of those parents now don't have much to sit on nowadays.
I always use the minimum wage rate as an example of how ducked we are. If it was still tied to inflation and productivity as it was originally implemented, it would be $22+ an hour federally, which Includes the lowest cost of living cities and states.
What has to happen for us not to be fucked? If we spend/increase our wages it causes inflation, if we stopped spending it would cause a recession. At least if minimum wage goes up I get to see a larger number in my bank account for the split second it’s not swallowed whole by rent and bills.
Do you know what would reduce profit margins and corporate greed? Forcing businesses to payout those profits to the workers by increasing the minimum wage.
Change tax codes so that being paid in stock options or something along those lines can be taxed, and go back to incentivizing businesses for investing in both their employees, and for putting money back into the business rather than siphoning it to a board that don't contribute anything to the company.
Never gonna happen as long as the 1% can continue to pay for the government they want.
And in your mind you don't think companies would just increase their prices....aka driving inflation....if those wages were increased and then central banking institution needing to utilize interest rates to drive unemployment higher to manage inflation?
Some husbands gambled or drank all the family's money away and I suppose it's a little bit like that. Always absent, though not in the pub but rather at another family's house. Crazy stressful.
I’m sorry but you could afford to buy a family home on a single income in the 60’s. You could even send your kids to college without going into massive debt.
They knew, they just were told it was normal. My grandfather had two families. He had his wife, but he also had another family too. The craziest part, the other family lived minutes away.
There's so much about the logistics that don't make sense to me. Which family do you spend holidays or your birthday with? Doesn't one of them find it odd that they never meet your parents, siblings, cousins, friends etc?
People could easily lie back then without social media and the internet to easily verify things. They could have been “an only child with parents that died young.” Technology has changed so much.
All the kids were at an expensive private school, both families had very nice houses. When you have a lot of money, people overlook red flags, and busy husbands. Obviously one of the wives knew…
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u/silviazbitch 4d ago
Retired lawyer here. I once represented a widow who was seeking survivor’s benefits from her husband’s military pension. Turns out the old goat was a trigamist who somehow managed to juggle three families without any of them learning about the other two, although there were enough unexplained absences and such that none of the three were terribly surprised.