No, the Average College Grad Wasn't Making $100,000 in the 1980s

[davewill]

This whole older was better thing certainly didn't apply to cars. You were damned lucky to get 100,000 miles out of a car (at least an American car) back then. Now most cars are good for at least twice that.

Computers are another oddity. For as long as I've been involved with computers, $500-1,000 bought you a basic computer, $2,000 bought you a computer that could actually do everything, and $5,000 bought you a bleeding edge system with all the latest tech. It's not much different now, except that the sub-$1,000 systems are more generally capable and are lasting people ten years instead of five.