Our economy doesn’t work as well or grow as fast when a few prosper at the expense of a growing middle class, and ladders for folks who want to get into the midle class.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat, And eat three pounds of sausages at a go, Or only bread and pickle for a week, And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
Prior to that, resourceful housewives who had grown up in a less prosperous era relied on substances that they used in their kitchens, such as vinegar used to clean windows.