Cost of Wood and Charges per Board Foot

[Charles Self]

Hell, I had to be younger than somebody! That was in 1959, for anyone who cares.

My first semester's tuition at Albany State (now the great and pretentious University at Albany) was 200 bucks, IIRC. and $400 for a semester in the dorms, with meals. One semester and I went out, against the rules, and got my own apartment. It was that or kill a college kid.

My niece, her husband and daughter came down from LI a few weeks ago, and we talked of cabbages, kings, RE taxes and things. First, they are paying approximately three times the assessed value of my home for a similar sized place (though nicer) on Long Island. They are also paying approximately 16 times what I am paying in RE and school taxes. Their tax bill is on the order of $167 per MONTH more than I pay for a year. I was born and raised in Westchester County, so high RE taxes come as no surprise, but that's asinine.

Our grandchildren, with minor exceptions, will scrape by. Our great grandchildren will not. We--and this is all inclusive--have gobbled their resources and their money. It has nothing to do with SS, but with our allowing idiot politicians over the past 65 years to piss away money at a rate that would scare anyone with half a brain. We make jokes about cost overruns and pork, and nothing EVER gets done about it. The national debt mounts, and we slither along--and that's how the kids will probably view us. As a bunch of thieving snakes.

My soapbox.

Yeah, well...if they waste a box on me, I'll come back and haunt 'em.

[George]

Remember the jump when I sewed on E-3. I was then making $ 22 per fortnightly payday. Felt so good about it that I went out and got married....

Stockboy at 0.50 / hour, but you could get a gallon for between 11 and 17 cents, _and_ a set of glasses for a fill up. The MGA cost me 1500 at three years old.

My daughter married a guy whose family had a few forties of timber, so when we made the cabinets for his NASCAR memorabilia, he supplied his own black ash. Same for all the replacement oak moldings - red oak from the "camp." The bed will be in cherry, but I'll have to supply anything over 4/4, because that's all they have in the barn.

Since I mostly turn firewood, my flat stock should hold out a few more years.

[Fly-by-Night CC]

Here's a website calculator I get a kick out of plugging numbers into: It's a Fed Resv Bank calculator for what the dollar amount in some year would equal in another year.

That $4700 Corvette would be just shy of $30,000 today. But then consider how much more by way of amenities and safety the C-5 or C-6 has over that '65.

Some things are pretty much as they should be with respect to inflation. Other things like houses and cars don't translate as easily since there're other factors that contribute to today's prices above the cost of building a similar one today.

[Charles Self]

Yes. Average size of post WWII house: under 1000 SF. Average size of Iraq era house, about 2800 SF. Just one thing. Of course, those Levittown houses, starting out just over 900 SF, IMS, are now larger and selling for something more like $350,000 than their original under 5K prices.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Few years ago I was in a mall and they had a display of vintage Corvettes. One had the original price list that was about $4200. I thought to myself, "why didn't I have one back then as they were fairly cheap?" Then I did some simple math and realized back they it was about a year's wages..

[Fly-by-Night CC]

Right. They were for those with disposable income then as they are today. Many of these cars were the second car in a family. Quite common today to have at least two cars (two are practically expected!) but in '65 not so much - evidence of spare cash for those who did have the Corvettes and Jags.

Also consider how many toys and additional expenses we have today that we "just couldn't live without" compared to 40 years ago: the aforementioned 2 cars in the family; cable TV; cell phones; computers; internet access; and expensive convenience foods (above and beyond the Swanson TV dinners) just to name a few.

Take a look at our shop tools compared with what our fathers had! My dad was a chemical engineer and made a middle class living but I remember him asking for a Stanley #7 for Christmas in the very early '70s to work on the woodwork for the house he was building us. Today most of us would go out and buy our own as the need arises. He had a used 4" jointer, a used radical alarm saw, a router and a belt sander. Everything else was done by hand or he sought out a local mill to do bulk surfacing. He would be amazed at the upper-end shop tools I have out there.

In other words, yes things cost more than they did in the good old days but perhaps it's in part an indicator of how much extra cash (whether in-hand or available through borrowing) is floating around - i.e. charge what the market will bear. This is especially evident with the housing "bubble".

[Greg G]

Kinfolks is acceptable... for a colloquialism. But never was a Burt fan, thanks.

I really wouldn't know. I prefer more seasoned women. Besides, they put old guys like me in jail for hanging around the schoolyard.

I hear ya. I was in the same situation until I shot some video of a prominent Texas politician in a .. um.. compromising position at a park near the Corpus Christy Navel Air Station.

Now it's Iranian Beluga Caviar and Dom - all the way.

You spend WAY too much time swapping configuration properties in Agent. But what I'd really like to know is which one of you smart-ass wreckers this _really_ is... Tyvek the Conqueror has never made a post to Usenet before yesterday, and I have a sneaking suspicion that you are actually... hmm... 220grit. :-p

Greg G.