The very rich are becoming even more wealthy, and almost everyone else is getting poorer.
When in reality, pretty much everyone is getting richer (at least in this country), simply that the wealthy make more. Hard to explain otherwise, when the "poorer" seem to own 2-3 autos, 2-3 TV's with cable or satellite, 1-2 computers. Many of those people are considered part of "the poor", by the "we know better what to do with your money than you do" leftists of this country
All the things you are listing there are simply carrots for the mules. Even if a family has all the things you list, that does not mean they have any freedom. The American Capitalist society is built on a solid foundation of fear.
Fear of the Jones' looking better than us. Fear that our children may not have everything they may ever want. Fear that we are failing to reach our potential which to most Americans means having two cars, two tv's, two computers and so forth.
Furthermore, for those in this country who are truly wealthy, allowing those among the other 90% of Americans to scurry about trying to obtain these items is a small price to pay to be the vulgar level of wealthy they in the top 10% are.
Technically, what you are saying is true. People do have more things today. Cars, tvs, washers, a house, dvd players and so forth but they are working twice as hard to get these items that in reality most MUST have in order to maintain a "normal" lifestyle. Mothers and Fathers must now both work fulltime jobs in order to enjoy a simple ideal quality of life that most Americans believe they must enjoy to have a "good life".
In the fifties, a stereotypical Ward Cleaver-type could have a job and provide the equivalent ideal quality of life for his family of four. Today, that ideal is enjoyed less and less among those who like to believe they are middle class.
While, yes, families enjoy cable, washing machines and driers, microwaves and maybe even two cars (which is for most normal families a MUST), there are no family vacations every year. There are no gaurantees of a college education for every child. Most parents, and even worse the kids themselves, must risk it all to get some kind of loan to get the kids into college which they must then spend their lifetimes paying off while hoping against hope they A) don't lose their jobs, B) don't have some kind of health calamity which would be a doubly devestating problem because they would then lose their jobs and they may not even have health insurance so that would result in even more debt or worse bankruptcy and perhaps take their kids out of college, or C) have to choose which child goes to college and which has to get out and work to make the money to maybe go to school.
And here's why all this is happening.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-05-20-cover-generation-wealth_N.htmThis doesn't even touch the whole reality of 10% of Americans owning a predominance of the truly vulgar wealth in America. That group basically lends the rest of us money so that we can stay in debt to them and make them richer by paying them interest.