I'm going to go out on a limb with an assumption: the fact that you hang out here probably says a lot about you and your socio-economic status and general intelligence, which relates to your financial sense.

But there were/are a generation of blue-collar, "middle class" people out there living the life I describe. I know some of them. They aren't lawyers and execs, they're public servants, unionized factory workers and such, most of whom make less money than me. Their boomer parents were middle-class wealthy, and their expectations are higher. Only the economy no longer supports it. So they fulfilled these expectations via copious amounts of debt. Then everything broke.