spent the weekend with my granddad, he is 85 now and got married at 25

he started the family in a poor, socialist country, in a depth of the cold war, with no real career prospects or financial security

average 25 year old men these days are 10x better off and don’t even consider starting families

feels backwards 

Curious: what does he think about communism?

weird, I'm constantly told by Americans that communism is good just hasn't been done right. Yet, anyone I ask who has lived through it seems to not like it. I'm sure they are wrong, though.

My parents often told me stories about their childhood in communist romania. Crazy stuff like how people would smuggle wstern candies, that there were shops exclusively for the party members/high ranking people and that brothers were almost sent to prison for not giving part of the produce to the state because it was ment for a funeral. 

Commies think the money is the root of all problems, but when you take that away, social status becomes the new currency. Occupation, knowing the right people, being from a respected family, etc. effectively reintroduced all the class issues that communism was trying to eradicate.