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Inflation Watch: How Much $1 Used To Get You!
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ZH is good at seeing the 'trees', on the big picture, not so good.
Its ALL collapsing folks
My 90 year old mother said your not supposed to read the ZH articles, just the headlines, then go straight to the comments section.
50 years ago, one little wink could get me laid.
Today, a hundred winks won't get me nuthin'.
What a crock. Gas prices were only 1/gallon in 1998 for a few months. That was the Asia / Russia / LTCM collapse price. In reality gas prices were over 1/gallon since 1990.
Thank god car prices, college prices, hotel prices, insurance prices haven't also increased...
You left out TAXES
A dollar used to get me 200 pieces of bazooka bubble gum,or, 20 candy bars, or 10 cokes, or 5 tacos, or, 3 gallons of gas. Now, all it gets me is 2/3 of a cup of coffee.
You could always enjoy that 2/3 cup of coffee in your $1 house in Detroit...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=detroit+house+$1&biw=1173&bih=593&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=5v8UVMjVKsqayATFsYLQBA&ved=0CCsQsAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny4a-oxOndo
Good four finger lid of columbian gold was $20 in 1974. Now, at least $200.
Shit is 10 times better too.
I really miss AKAK. He was so descriptive about all things "ass wiping ". Chinisms in particular.
A lid? Cheech and Chong called they are looking for their terminology back.
1963 or so twenty five cents bought comic book and an ice cream cone, got change back.
So the FED have devalued the dollar ninety five percent, didn't prevent the great depression and didn't stop bank failures? When Banksters should have failed the FED rescued them! Sounds a tad self serving and as a private corporation it makes business sense to pillage the public.
Death, by law, to Banksters and their stooges.
I have been to 1810 and would rather live in 2014. It's easier to connect the dots looking backwards. The heebs live like shit.
1965: minimum wage is $1.25 (5 silver quarters)
2014: minimum wage is 7.25
Today 5 silver quarters are worth $19.00.
I'm not for or against minimum wage, but want you to see how via money printing, the world's governments have debased the currency and made life a struggle for the poor and everyone on a fixed income.
PS If you make $19 or less per hour, you are working for minimum wage by 1965 standards.
My grandparents paid $12,000 for a piece of crap 2 family house (original rooms built in the mid 1800's, 'finished' in WWI and heat added in the 1920's). My parents paid $29,000 for the same house in the late 1960's (before the major inflation of the 1970's and the 'two income' baby boomer workforce drove prices up even more. That house sold for over a half million when they died in the early 2000's - not even at the top of the market.
A house used to cost aprox 2 1/2 times annual earnings - now it's still 5 times earnings (AFTER the housing drop when it was close to 7 times).
Once upon a time a blue collar family could own a house and a car on ONE income - had a decent life and could put their kids threw college. Now?...... forget it.
A Flat in London:
1976 Price : 11,000 GBP
TODAY ? : 330,000 GBP
$85 Billion QE / Month ..... = 1/3 of Ft. Knox in Gold EVERY MONTH.
That's what happens when there is too much fraudulent money circulating.
Do they really have that much tungsten in Fort Knox ?
The tungsten is gold plated so its all good. They'll soon switch the role of Ft Knox to a supply house for machine tools to the chinese manufacturing facilities
Last mint of silver quarters was 1964, but I get the point.
Have no fear, the price of silver and gold are coming down, just look at the last quarter, it's like fucking magic the way these bastards are able to get away with this.
In the late-1980's the U.S. government was running out of SILVER.
In CHINA, silver is historically or greater intrinsic value than gold. (The British-China "Opium Wars" were about trading silver for opium.) But in the late-1980's China LENT a huge amount of silver to the U.S. government for 20 years, with the guarantee that it would be returned as physical silver bullion.
Technically, the repatriation of China's silver is OVERDUE. If China tomorrow demanded the return of its physical silver from the U.S. government, the U.S. would be FUCKED. A failure to deliver is, by definition, a "default".
The result: The market price of physical silver would skyrocket to $200-plus USD per ounce; then physical gold would follow easily reaching $10,000 - $12,000 USD per ounce. The Chinese government could turn in its $3 Trillion plus in U.S. bonds and cash; and the U.S. dollar would become TOILET PAPER with pictures on it.
Like I keep telling you-
Meltdooooooownnnn!
Kilo of pure blow was $100,000.00 in 79. Now it $12,000.00 in Texas just over the border. That's deflation!
Not deflation as that is a monetary phenomenon and there are MORE $$$ chasing blow than in '79. What you refer to is merely supply side economics at work as the increased efficiency and productivity of the Drug Cartels has increased supply therefore lowering cost.
The good news is: If whiskey were still a buck for 4 gallons, I'd be a dead man !!!
The good news is that "fine people" like you, still exist.
This is such a stupid article, anyone with half a brain knows this isn't how you measure inflation.
The government way to 'measure' inflation is to first decide what rate of inflation you're wiliiing to announce and then work backwards choosing items tht awill help you meet that target.
So... you leave out things like bread and count things like cheap toasters from China.... when you still can't get the numbers to quite work, you then come up with BS like 'added value' and 'substitutions'.......
Why should we need to measure inflation Numbnutz?
It's imposed on us, just another tax.
But we're not talking about a "wacking-off to porn in a BLS cubicle or a Princeton economics department office" kind of inflation measurement, now, are we?
I use to buy Holly 600 carb, 750 double pumpers and such from JCWhitney for around $45 to $50. I just went to there internet site and the same carb is $450 to $500...
Granted it has been a ot of years since I bought one, but what does that matter the price has gone up 10 times and I have never seen 10 times more pay...
I worked in Allis-Chalmers Combine factory in Kansas City many years ago and made $10 per hour. To reach the same at 10 times increase meant that I would be makeing a $100 per hour doing the same job right now...
Fact is, I had a whole bunch more money in the old days than I do at anytime now...
You carry a hundred bill as you use to carry a twenty bill and still have less money in the hundred than in the twenty of the old days...
Sad...
But then you used to be able to buy a BRAND NEW CAR for $3500 (in the 1960-70's) - the equivalent today is ten times more.
A WRECK sold for scrap goes for $500 minimum these days. None of the first ten cars I ever owned cost that much. Funny how Henry FOrd upping the wages of assembly line workers CREATED customres for the cars they made. Today? How many Americans are left working for auto manufacturers? how many are left working for ANY kind of manufacturer these days?
I bought a souped up, used, '74 Plymouth Roadrunner with bored .060 over with a 750 cfm double pumper carb 340 Cu inch mopar engine with 12 in wide mickey thompson tires in the back and retrofitted with a short throw hurst shifter 4 speed borg warner transmission in 1980. The thing could pop wheelies and cost a whopping $800. There wasn't a corvette or anything else in town that could touch it in a 0 to 60 mph sprint.
A brand new Ford F350 pickup truck with all the bells and whistles cost ~$7700 in 1978... today its a mere $58,000 and I fairly sure that isn't the price for one with all the bells and whistles.
Lots of folks making cars down in the American southland.
Yeah, it's for those Japanese and German companies mostly. But they can afford 12-year old rust buckets to get back and forth to work and the local Wal-Mart.
God bless them.
The carb example is false since the market for carbs is close to zero and is now more of a craftsman product than something for mass consumption. Even by hobbyists. I thnk the last carbureted production vehicle in the US was at least 20 years ago. Ever try to find vacuum tubes for an old TV or radio?
Chinese and Soviet manufactures are stamping them out like crazy for Audiophiles and Musicans. Even a few US manufactures are starting to crank out tubes. Plus there is a ton of NOS stock for things yer old radio would take, 6series and the like.
I bet you used those 6L6's in your fryers and that's why those burgers were soooo good.
A set of blackwall tires for a 1960 Corvette cost $15.75. At the very minimum, you'll pay 20 times that amount today.
dupe
I don't think that 1973 price for Hersheys bar is correct.
Candy bars were a nickel circa 1962, I'd guess a dime by 1968, and I think the standard price was at least a quarter by 1973. Same price as a game of pinball.
That price looked wrong to me too.
Project Venus and Petrodollar dollar Federal Reservel quantitative sleezing is over.
How much did a fucking 16 GB iPad cost in 1968?
So we are obviously in a deflationary collapse.
Eat up bitches.
/s/
About as much as a "vacuum tube" for a TV. Your comment just exemplifies the loss of "purchasing power" through "fractional lending" Over the last 40+ years.
Keep those comments coming...
You just have to shop smarter. Expired foods and medicins are at least 50% off.
I'm watching CFL fotball and McD's ad says a burger is $1.39.
So you're saying CFL football is cheaper to watch then the NFL variety?
How do the players treat their ladies up there in Canuckistan?
The Fedcoats are stealing from you through their fiat-conjuring. Further, they use their fiat-conjuring to fund THEIR projects, bypassing our elected Congress. What are they buying? Equipment to kill you or spy on you, or imprison you. Wake up, and pass the ammunition.
We're not victims, we're volunteers. This mess slowly reverses with every oz purchased by strong hands.
You sound like a bunch of whining teahadis. Just face it, you can't stand America because it elected a black man to be president.
The world is healing and the sea levels are falling. Hope you all stroke out while watching Hannity of Faux.
///////SARC!
Thems was fighting words until I saw the ////////SARC! at the bottom.
Black? Half-right.
Man? DUBIOUS!
1/2 Rabbit - every time he skips down the stairs from Air Force one with his 2 hands together palms facing down he looks like a rabbit.
He's just dreaming of the day when he gets fly off in the green helicopter for the last time and go out and proudly buy that Chevy Volt.
I think technology would be (much) further along if tort reform was instituted.
Our founding Fathers understood preservation, and discovery.
In 1968, a newspaper cost a quarter, Sunday edition. Now, that same quarter will buy you a newspaper company.
But the truth? You won't find that available at any price.
A bottle of Coke was $0.05 in 1945.
USPS 1st class postage stamp was $0.03 in 1945.
Funny how people bitch about the price of things going up that were considered luxuries decades ago. I guess we are all fucked. You are participating in the I deserve mentality of the welfare state and don't even know it.
I don't deserve $1 burgers. I don't even deserve to go out to eat. That is a luxury. That $1.50 coke, I'll skip it. I don't deserve shit and neither do you.
What I am pissed off about is the corruption at the top that takes what they don't deserve.
"I don't deserve shit and neither do you." LOL, speak for yourself asshole.
"I don't deserve shit and neither do you."
That doesn't mean that prices haven't gone up. What's your point?
You may not deserve refridgeration or proper fecal matter sanitation because of your welfare state mentality.
In 1966, a year at UConn-that's tuition, room, meals, student fee, health insurance and books, cost $1100.
Now it's $20,000.
Good basketball coaches don't come cheap...
The fact that the highest paid state employee is a basketball coach is a good commentary on our society. China and Japan laugh at our education system.
IN EVERY FRICKIN' STATE!!!!!
*HEAD SPLODY*
You might be surprised, I think they're way too busy watching our demented sitcoms.
But they still send their kids here, no matter what the cost
But now the school has 'diversity' training. So the price increase is SO worth it.
http://financialaid.uconn.edu/cost/
it's actually 25K to 45K depending. I hear "los locales" have a nice strange viral infection waiting for you too. I am sure the UConn Student Med Center is Amaze-balls, though.
We jokingly denigrate all the printed dollars as being as worthless as toilet paper...but, the truth is a dollar won't even buy a roll of toilet paper anymore..
And another, related anachronism: dollars to doughnuts
And you can't even wipe your ass with it without getting a booty-bump from the trader who last used it to snort nosecandy.
You're not supposed to wipe your as with C notes, use the ones.
Let's just say the traders had to make some "hedonic adjustments" of their own...I *am* using "The Washingtons".
i'm warren buffett - and i will do as i please, thank you. c-notes have less acid. besides, my minions then clean them for me, so i never have to flush them.
It costs $3.49 for 100 plastic pennies
http://factecards.com/there-exists-product-like-plastic/
It looks like the Federal Reserve System has done a great job of preserving the value of the currency!
Because its their currency, their rules. If you dont have any silver in your pocket then you're not helping to fix the problem. PMs are the only way of taking back control..pitchforks are a pipe dream.
Very true. Whomever defines "money", creates said "money", and regulates this "money" (like the Federal Reserve) has the power in any monetary system.
What is the point in focusing on the prices of things in USD? Look at the change in labor hours required to buy 20 gal of gas. It has increased from 6 hours to 9 hours in 35 yrs. That's 50% more of your time and energy to trade for the same thing you've been trading for for the last 35 yrs. Like another poster on here said a while back..we can argue over whether its right/wrong to trick a retard into giving you his candy (Sheep:Govt:Fed relationship) but what remains true is if, for the last 35 yrs, all people had saved/stored wealth in the form of Real money instead of pretend money we would not be victims of this loss in living standard simply because time went by.
We might be victims of Executive Order 6102 V2.0 , under the guise of national security of course.
I am not sure confisction is really needed now. With derivatives and free money, they have been able to have the paper price drive the physical price without a huge amount of effort.
UBS (the Union Bank of Switzerland) publishes an annual report called Prices and Earnings. good international price and wage comparisons
one example: working time to buy one big Mac:
10 minutes Hong Kong
84 minutes Nairobi
Thanks, thats a cool report
Here's the link
http://www.ubs.com/4/japan/prices_and_earnings_06.pdf
Am I reading that right..Tokyo purch power 20% higher than US for a BigMac?
But you get a free side of Ebola with your burger in Nairobi.
I have come to the conclusion that while inflation appears tame and government claims it is low it is growing. The seeds have been planted, and the number of them is somewhat shocking. Inflation lurks beneath the surface and is hidden away in the dark corners of our future.
Want to know where the real cost of things is going, just look at the replacement cost from recent storms and natural disasters. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/06/inflation-lurks-beneath-and-hidde...
Another misleading article! The herd LOVES this kind of posts but if you go to the FACTS things look a lot different than what the person wrote. In 1941 you could buy 4 movie tickets for 1 dollar. That sounds cool today, but what they don't tell you is that the minimal wage at the time was 0.30 cents. So you would have to work 3.3 hours to earn that dollar to buy those 4 tickets. Today with the minimum wage at 7.25 and movie tickets around 7.96 you would have to work one hour more for those same 4 tickets or 4.3 hours. There is definitely some loss of purchase power due to inflation, but considering that today you have a lot more comfort in theaters ( like better AC system, better seats etc) and a better experience due to technological advances in movie making ( surround sound, image quality, 3D etc ) you are paying more but you are also getting a better product. Now what the article is trying to do is to EXAGGERATE things. If movie theaters could get away with crappy seats and AC 1941 stile and Hollywood could also get away with 1941 picture quality and sound, the price of the ticket would be at or below 1941 levels. Depending on location and discounts you can lower the costs of tickets but my point is that the article is comparing apples with bananas. I gave a example about the tickets but if you go and check every entry you can find similar results. Oh....and they don't tell you that in 1941 you would have to pay around 2400$ for a 20" TV set while today you pay around 150 for a 24" flat screen LED etc. I will let you calculate the deflation on this one. Anyways, another completely misleading article just like the gold article I commented last week.
Yes, a better comparison would be in labor hours, but the article is trying to prove a point. Three years ago my favorite almond stuffed olives at Costco cost $4.68, today they cost $8.99. The Cashmere toilet paper rolls I buy from Costco cost exactly the same today as they did 3 years ago, but the rolls weighed in at 110 grams then, today they are 95 grams. Inflation is just screaming to come out of the closet big time.
I agree. I'm not trying to disprove inflation but put things in perspective. The article is sensationalist. When you analyse the facts the WTF effect disappears.
Technology has resulted in productivity gains. We're just complaining about our share.
Dont forget the chestnut about how flat-screen prices are MUCH more affordable now than 10 years ago. Hilarious you would use the movie theater example. That business is BK, and Hollywood is rapidly heading toward being BK. So is our fiat-conjuring Fedcoat Lordship.
"If movie theaters could get away with crappy seats and AC 1941 stile and Hollywood could also get away with 1941 picture quality and sound, the price of the ticket would be at or below 1941 levels."
Oh, really? And how would the theater pay its 2014 salaries and 2014 food costs and 2014 maintenance expenses with the revenue generated by 1941-level ticket prices?
I'm not talking about nominal terms pal!! Did you read what I wrote? If you don't understand the concept I can't help you.
THE FOLLOWING IS WHAT YOU WROTE. I'll use bracketed words to emphasize what you actually wrote, whether or not that's what you meant to write:
"If movie theaters [TODAY] could get away with crappy seats and AC 1941 stile and Hollywood [TODAY] could also get away with 1941 picture quality and sound, the price of the ticket [TODAY] would be at or below [ACTUAL] 1941 levels."
So, whether you meant to or not (primarily because you write like shit), you said that if today's theaters and today's Hollywood could get away with providing today's theatergoers with crappy seats, crappy air conditioning and crappy picture quality and sound, they could actually charge today's theatergoers what they charged in 1941, or $0.25 per ticket. And I, not surprisingly, pointed out that if today's theater owners charged today's theatergoers $0.25 per ticket, they would have a hard time covering 2014-level salaries and food and maintenance costs.
If you don't know how to communicate effectively with your fellow human beings, I can't help you...
Much of this has to do with inflation, but some of it merely reflects how values change because of supply and demand. Because of the uncertainty in today's market and the direction events might take the subject of "value and worth" continues to garner a fair amount of interest and remains relevant.
History is chucked full of distorted markets, debts unpaid, promises unfilled, and bubbles. These "interesting times" play havoc with the value of things and what they are worth. Like some of the cruel games children play you don't want to find yourself without a chair or holding the "hot potato" when the game ends. More on this important subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/05/value-and-worth-constantly-change...
Upton Sinclair's Jungle was fiction. Thought everyone knew that by now. Even roosevelt knew it, despite using it to further his own agenda
Show all prices in terms of hours of minimum wage labor required instead and you'll see nothing really changes except the paper.
1957 minimum wage was $1.00 an hour.
Cigarettes were 5 packs for a buck and you got a few pennies in change back.
Gasoline was .19 to .21 a gallon.
(So if minimum wages were increased to $15 an hour and cigarettes are $45 for five packs and gas is $3.50 a gallon ..........)
That'd be due to taxes, not monetary inflation, but enjoy your stage 4 carcinoma just the same.
I remind you, at least here in Texas, you can still buy a gallon of gasoline for a quarter.....so long as the quarter is a pre 1964 silver quarter.
Because of the way the coins were designed, the formula is; silver content x face value x price per ounce of silver or, for a quarter with normal wear: .715 x .25 x $19 = $3.39. Gasoline down at the Kroger store is $3.10 per gallon.
Family management was a lot easier in the 1800’s too.
1st man - 'The wife? “Oh, uh, she died in child labor on the prairie.”'
2nd man “Mine too!”
High fives all around!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEG3iv0YKsw
Can we please see the price of pussy and dope, then and now?
I mean, let's be real. Let's look at the black market stuff.... The stuff the gov. doesn't want you to talk about. How bout the price of a hit man?
Or is this stuff negotiable? Should the price of gas be bargained for?
Fuck ya!
Economic hit men are a dima a dozen on wall street factoring in average hourly wages in that neck of the woods.
At Mr. Saunders country store in East Palatka Fla. A RC cola cost 15 cents if you brought a bottle for deposit. A can of Copenhagen Snuff was 25 cents. It went up to 28 cents and I had to find another Pepsi bottle to cover rise in price. Damn good times back in 1975.
1975?
Good Times (1974)
THEME SONG: Good Timeshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6gNo4-1r6k
Back then, collecting pop bottles actually made sense.
If I swiped a quart 7 Up bottle from Nanny, they were a dime!
A good number of people around her seem to be making a living - for what it's worth - collecting cans around here (reasonably affluent burbs of NYC). I keep my depoosit cans together and hold them for a guy who makes the rounds every recycling day. He lives at the homelss shelter my kid did his Eagle project at. Plenty of people collecting cans for deposits.
Used to be more people collecting scrap metal but the cops started cracking down with all the thefts. You'll get fined for pulling metal out of the trash now.
Kids used to be able to move out of their parent's house and get their own apartment at 18, not today.
Pretty soon the kids will have to share the basement with renters off the street.
In my family we got a suitcase for our 18th birthday gift.
Definitely not living single, but with roommates it's possible to the point of living in near luxury on minimum wage, as my daughter has shown me.
Flip side is it reveals the grim future, which is multifamily households.
cant wait for the FIVE income family
they are here, they're called illegal immigrants by conservatives and undocumented voters.. er workers by democrats
And that's a low count. It's not unusual for the illegal houses to have 10+ wage earners here, and sometimes over 20 people to a house between kids and extended family.
Lets examine the years of labor (computed at the median household American income) required to purchase the median 2014 American home. In 2014, the median US home sells for $275K, up from $24K in 1970 (an 11x multiple). Today's median annual household income is ~$51K, up from $8K in 1970 (call it a 6.5x multiple). So in 2014, it takes 5.5 years of pre-tax household income to afford the median US home. In 1970, it only took 3 years of pre-tax household income to afford the median US home. In 1970, 40% of women over the age of 16 were in the labor force. Today, that % is ~64%. This is relevant b/c household income is measured by TOTAL $$s earned, which in married or cohabitating couples homes counts both partners. To conclude, the median US household is being screwed 6-ways-on-Sunday as measured by rapidly rising home prices relative to household income. To all you Fedcoats snooping these comments, do you think this truth is more or less likely to lead to revolution through time?
“Time is NOT money; it is far more precious.”
I recall my father telling me how little things cost when HE was a kid. It used to irritate me, but now I understand.
He and his brothers owned some supermarkets, where I worked as a young teenager - often stamping prices on various products, then later driving a delivery truck. One of these supermarkets was not your typical supermarket of today, but rather a “specialty supermarket” where your steak, other meats and even deli-meats were sliced to your specifications right in front of you. The prices were correspondingly higher. So here goes ...
I grew up in the mid-1950's to late-1960's.
a candy bar was 5 cents (a 6-pack of candy bars was 25 cents) - and they were LARGER than today
a bottle of Coke was 5 cents
a loaf of bread was about 14 cents (Bread was delivered from the bakery TWICE a day to the stores, with the "old" morning bread removed and replaced with the "fresh" afternoon bread. In late afternoon some stores sold the "old" morning bread at reduced prices (around 1/2 price); and even the next day as "day-old bread" for 2-3 cents)
The “specialty supermarket” (located in a rather wealthy section of the city) featured "home delivery" of groceries for regular customers only- for FREE. A customer could phone in an order, an employee would fill it, another would drive the groceries to the homes and unpack them for the customer in the home. "Tips" to the drivers were discouraged. Regular customers also received a bottle of rather expensive Scotch whiskey at Christmas. (I know it must have been expensive because when I asked my father why he didn’t take a bottle home, he replied, “Son, I can’t afford it!”)
During the late-1960's when I got my driver's license, the price of regular gasoline was around 24 cents per gallon. My father's car required "premium gasoline" at around 29 cents per gallon - and in the early 1970's we were SHOCKED when the price of "premium gasoline" rose to 33 cents per gallon.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In the mid-1970's the OPEC "gas shortage" occurred while I was in medical school in Washington, D.C. I would wait in a line of cars 1/2 mile long and then have to pay the OUTRAGEOUS price of 63 cents per gallon of regular gasoline. That may not seem like such a "big deal", except that in our 3rd and 4th years of school, students performed "clinical rotations" at various affiliated hospitals within D.C., in Maryland and Virginia - sometimes over 15 miles from the medical school. Strange as it may seem, some of us looked forward to being "on-call", which meant that EVERY OTHER NIGHT you had to remain in the hospital all night in case something needed to be done - and this included weekends. For example, you might begin your normal day on Monday at 7:00 AM and end at 7:00 PM; then stay in the hospital "on call" from 7:00 PM until 7:00 AM the next day (Tuesday); then work your normal shift from 7:00 AM until 7:00 PM that Tuesday evening. That meant 36 hours straight. If one was lucky and could find a empty couch somewhere in the hospital, one might 3-4 hours sleep; BUT we had to carry "beepers" at all times and were often called for the most trivial tasks (e.g., drawing blood or changing an IV infusion) which the nurses could easily, willingly and more skillfully do, but they were told to "Beep" us, since it was "part of our training". So, instead of searching for a place to sleep and then actually trying to sleep, I simply studied. (The REAL HELL was if, for some legitimate reason, one of the other medical students - usually working in groups of 4 - was unable to be "on call" the next night, then you had a 1-in-4 chance of being "on call" for a second straight night under a different resident. In such cases, the nurses often took pity and beeped you as little as possible.)
So, WHY did some of us actually like being "on call"? First, it saved us money for gasoline. Second, driving from Fairfax, Virginia to the Veterans Hospital in D.C. or Walter Reed AMC or Bethesda Naval Hospital was a LONG drive - both in distance and time. Leaving the hospital at 7:00 PM might mean arriving home at 8:30 PM, eating, studying until 1:00 AM, then some sleep - waking up at 5:30 AM. Third, it meant that you worked one-on-one with your resident (God forbid if you woke residents up for some trivial task, as they had an assigned bed to sleep in and liked their sleep!) But if something serious did occur, you got to do a LOT MORE (e.g., assisting in surgery, etc.) than a student normally would get to do during the day. Fourth, it meant that I could actually spend time with my patients - having chats either one-on-one or in small groups - really getting to know them and their families as people. (During the day, a student rushes around all day checking lab results, briefly examining patients, checking X-rays, writing daily notes and orders in patients' charts, and performing various procedures with no time for anything else.) Finally, some (not all, but some) of the nicer hospitals offered FREE coffee, pastries and even full meals to students "on call". To a medical student on a tight budget, saving on gas money and food was a "big plus"! And at that time, NOT having to pay that 63 cents per gallon of regular gasoline and waiting in line for an hour for it were “luxuries” beyond compare.
But the time saved by NOT driving was even more precious.
John-Henry Hill, M.D.
retired physician
http://JohnHenryHill.Wordpress.com
Great post John. Great to hear your stories as an intern.
The ol' greenback, she aint what she used to be, aint what she used to be
Updating what I wrote below about how this article is misleading. Lets consider the price of silver which is supposed to be a good referential on buying power. Ok the person that wrote it says that in 1960 you could buy 1OZ of silver with 1 buck. Well the minimal wage in 1960 was 1 dollar so 1 hour of labor to buy your silver. Today you will need to work 2.6 hours to buy the same amount of the metal. But not long ago in 2001 silver was at 5.29 per OZ and the minimal wage was 5.15 so you would have to work not even 2 MINUTES more per hour to buy the same 1 OZ of silver. Again the WTF effect is gone and in silver terms the inflation from 1960 to 2001 seems reasonable. As the price of metals and commodities wobbles over the years and decades those differences will increase and decrease. this article is the typical crap people like peter Schiff and other put out there to fool the herd.
How would you go about smoothing that graph to remove the effects of price suppression by paper games?
You are missing the point pal! I'm just saying that the nominal value of a currency can't be used as a referencial to buying power.
Do your little formula with automobiles. Do it with college tuition. Do it with medical expenses. Do it with just about ANYTHING that most people buy today and that they bought in 1960. I hate to break it to you, but the de facto POLICY of the U.S. government since at least 1971 has been to pay for its misadventures by reaming the public with the back-door tax of CHRONIC INFLATION. And the only people who mewl about inflation being "moderate" and "reasonable" are pathetic, status-quo apologists like YOU.
Ok so lets do it pal !! Searching for old advertisings I found that a economic car in 1960 would cost you around 2200 grand. The minimum wage back than was 1 dollar, so you would have to work 2200 hours to buy this car. Today a economic car like a Toyota corolla will cost you around 19 grand. So minimum wage at 7.25 you will have to work 2620 hours for this car. So for 420 more hours worked ( about a month and a half) you have a car with very superior 21 century technology like air bag, ABS, electronic injection etc and warranty that people in 1960 could not even dream about it. I find it to be reasonable.
Yes! Despite the taxes having increased tremendously and the regulation increasing even more, cars are better despite all the interference by the government. You have to give what is left of the free market credit for doing such a wonderful job.
Who's being fooled? The gov't has been creating fiat money out the wahzoo. If you arn't stacking some precious metals it's at your own peril.
One point I believe this article misses, is the fact that the efficiency of producing all these products has increased over time. That is the nature of a functionnal market system.
Due to productivity advances... An acre of corn now produces far more than it did in 1900, an hour of labor produces far more today than it did even 20 years ago, a gallon of gasoline will move your car further down the road, etc...
SO, what I am saying is that the inflation is drasticlly under reported in this article due to the advances in productivity that effectively lower the cost of production and to the consumer. magnifying the cost increases we see while masking much of the inflation at the same time.
Now... don't get me started on the reduction in size of a candy bar!
Yes, so that oil/gasoline we pay for is still around 29 cents a gallon in silver, a bargain. And a pound of hamburger about the same. And there is also the government throwing roadblocks out there with all the OSHA and other regulations and increased taxes.
Three cheers for gov't!.....
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Our government at work .................
Our government: Federal Reserve Member Banks
Outrunchange.com
Average hourly/weekly wages
Labor 1860 .098 cents hour
10 hour day 6 days a week (Sunday off ) $5.80 a week pay
1870 .156 hour $9.36 week
1880 .135 hour $8.10 week
1890 .151 hour $9.06 week
1880 was a gold crisis deflation
So $1.00 gets 10 cans of soup but its 10% of your weeks wage.
Truth is not one cent of those wages exist today they were converted onto goods of the day at that time, for what was considered fair trade.
You cant point to that 1890 dollar and reference it to fair trade today without first accounting for the increase in wages.
Yes, and it was prices going up which mostly forced wages up. All those decades the banks were making the profits and government was able to expand. We just got to fork over more fiat for the same goods. I think it is telling to look at the price of goods in the past and compare it to the price of silver coins today. An example would be a gallon of gas at $3.50 today and a silver quarter $3.25.
And with silver you could save it and it wouldn't lose it's value like paper money has.
an element never dicussed in these types of articles is back 'then' we made most of the items people purchased, today much of what is purchased is made somewhere else by cheap (or cheaper labor) which hides many of the effects of inflationary policies.
18 cents per gallon of gas is what it was in 1970 I read.
Near $4/gallon now.
Circa 1968-69 Canada, Kraft dinner 12 cents a box or 10 for a dollar, 1 Brit. gallon of gas 43 cents, 20 pack of Peter Jackson cigs 40 cents. Union wage at the time $4.50 / hr.
http://news.yahoo.com/feces-mold-cockroaches-found-foster-farms-plants-a...
I know, I know, it's slightly off topic but I did not know where to put this Gem.
A few years back, for a buck'o'five you could buy freedom. Now there is almost no price for that...you just can't have it. Debt slave forever
there you go...now you know why the market is up. Housing should be and will be up as well but for the hedge fund engineered real estate scare that transferred much of the wealth from the have nots to the haves...but then what's new
there you go...now you know why the market is up. Housing should be and will be up as well but for the hedge fund engineered real estate scare that transferred much of the wealth from the have nots to the haves...but then what's new
You guys have to understand the economics of a website. They make money via advertising. No advertising no money, so they HAVE TO BE SENSATIONALIST! They are very aware of the demographics here and people that read ZH like to believe their gold will go to eternity and beyond....forever. That 1 dollar should buy the same thing as it did in 1900, and that lizards disguised as humans rule the world. So they show you gold charts only if after 2001, they compare apples with bananas in articles as the one above and try to disguise a lizard behind a Brad Pitt pic named Tyler Durden : ) )
Tyler Durden is actually a girl Moron like you didnt alredy know
yeah the similarity with brad pit