Actually using the inflation calculator on the interweb it was more like $1000 but I was certainly an early adopter. I had a 1975 Betamax I was into 8 tracks just about the time they stopped being 4 track (1966-7), I had a projection TV in the late 70s, a digital watch with a red LED display and you had to push the button to see the time. I paid $100 for mine, a year or two later Shell would give you one with a fill up. I also had a "4 banger" calculator when they were $100+
Now I am the opposite guy. I still have PCs running XP, I drive a 20 year old Honda and I won't buy anything until they have worked out the bugs and dropped the price. I learned.
iirc, my '86 F150 was around 10K. No A/C, vinyl seats, straight 6 engine, and 4 on the floor overdrive tranny. It's semi-retired but still is in the driveway as my winter backup vehicle and hauler. It's about time for its annual awakening to shake the yellow jacket nests out. The little bastards love the tailgate but I hosed them down this week.
That was the V6? I had one in my '82 Firebird. Not a bad engine, but the rear main seal would spin and when the moon was in the right phase it would oil down the exhaust. I got used to people telling me my car was on fire. Like most oil leaks it was about a tablespoon of oil and a lot of drama. Never fixed it and traded it in on the F150.
The salesman was concerned that the change of vehicle types was some sort of mid life crisis. Maybe it was, but I never regretted it. With a basic canopy on the pickup I could go car camping and not have to set up a tent in the rain.
With the Toyota, I'm back to the rain. I got hosed down in east Kentucky and my crap wasn't dry until Tennessee when I camped in a motel. At least it was a step up from camping with a bike where you take down the wet tent and ride off in the rain.
I worked for a company in the early '70s whose principal product line was RF preheaters for the plastics industry. They ran about 100 mHz. However the company had built some microwaves and placed them in a couple of area restaurants. The idea was the restaurant could prepare a batch of marinara sauce or whatever, freeze it, and thaw it out on demand.
The mikes were very large industrial quality units. Unfortunately the company completely missed the consumer market. We kept one of the smaller 100 mhz units in the lab. It did wonders for day old doughnuts. workers in the molding shops also figured out if it could heat phenolic plastic preforms it could heat up dinner too. They also figured out metal utensils weren't a good idea.
We went to Quebec on our honeymoon and drove up in my Lincoln with my wife snoozing happily at 90 - 100 mph. It became apparent that Quebec City wasn't designed for land whales so I rented a 'compact' that turned out to be a rebadged Colt. I'd get up to about 25 mph and my wife would start to have a panic attack. Mind you, this was a woman who knew things were going to get interesting if I suggested she fasten her seat belt. In the days before buzzers, chimes, and traffic tickets those things were optional.
Checked out of the Chateau Frontenac, retrieved the Lincoln from the parking garage, and we were back on the road at full cruising speed.
A few years later a friend borrowed a Honda when her Saab wouldn't start. She came back and reported the experience was like going down the road on two motorcycles loosely strapped together.
I think it was in '80 when I was looking for a new car that I went into a Honda dealership and had the feeling the salesman wasn't convinced I was worth to buy a Honda. They caught on fast.
My '96 Ranger left the lot in Huntsville Ontario May 27 1996 for a total price of $20369.31. Basic MSRP was 15,595.00, plus the preferred equipment package at $1002 (whichincluded the 14 inch cast aluminum wheels, the handling package, 5 speed manual OD transmission, oversized fuel tank, and 4 wheel antilock brakes) $1446.00 for the optional 4.0 litre enginr, 326.00 for the 3.55 Posi, $352 for the power steering, $212 for the AM/FM Stereo cassette radio, $84.00 for the 4700GVW package and $720 for frieght plus sales taxes and license fee. Sliding rear window, box liner and capper were over and above.
I paid $0.075 on the dollar for the truck 7 years ago, or about $0.75 on the dollar for the cap and liner and got the truck for free
I guess our definition of "middleclass" is different. I consider a self emplyed or small businessman who owns a decent house in a good part of town debt free on a single income with 2 kids before the age of 50 to be "middleclass". The guy scraping by on 2 incomes paying rent or trying to get his mortgage paid off before he hits 60 is "working class". When I was teaching I wasn't making any more than I was turning a wrench - so I wentback to turning the wrench because there was less hassle. When I was offered the teaching job at the college while I was service manager I turned it down. When I got my mortgage paid off I decided to make a career change, taking a big pay cut for 2 years - then 3 years later struck out on my own - working for myself instead of a boss. - that was at age 40.
Yes - but the "SUV" is a "middle calss" vehicle by your definition
I lived the "middle class life" on it - stay-at-home mom - no mortgage, 2 decent vehicles on the driveway, no car payments, no debt, a nice holliday every year, 2 good kids who were not wanting for anything and got good educations,
Yup - those "wannabees" living in houses mortgaged to the hilt and the proffessionals - who are "upper class" - country club folks.
Benz, BMW, AUDI, Caddilac, Lincoln, Genesis, Lexus,Rang Rover, Jag etc are NOT middle class cars. Those are "upper class" cars. The Rolls and Bently and Fararri are for the "stinking rich" Uber-class.
The median family income is around $60,000. Isn't that the middle? Trader and his northeastern neighbors would tell us $100,000 or more is the low end of middle class but that is the top 14% of incomes.
There is an 'offical' class of people and a 'money class'.
I don't recall the names, but it goes something like the ones in the ruling class, ones below that like the lawyers that use their brains as the middle class, the ones that work with their hands as the working class. Not sure of the other classes at all.
Then there is the money class where you have the extreamly wealthy that are in the billions, the high millions, the lower millions, the high
300,000 or so, the 'middle of around 40,000 to 100,000 or so, and the lower class and poor .
So to one middle class, they are well off money wise, and the other is just the average wage earner.
What is middle class is determined by the work you do, not how well you get paid, or how successful you do your finances, let alone how many kids you have.
Plenty of the working class can be very well paid indeed, most obviously in the mining industry but when they drive a f****ng great haul pak or one of the longest iron ore trains the world has ever seen, they are still working class.
That's silly if they are a small business owner who is not much of a small business owner who doesn't do very well in that small business or who has been stupid enough to marry too many who have made off with half their assets every time they have been divorced.
Same with say a lawyer to chooses to work for the pittance that the state provides to defend the petty criminal when they keep showing up in court. That individual is still middle class.
Middle and working class isnt about how much you get paid, it's the type of work you do.
Someone driving a f****ng great haul pak in an iron ore mine is still working class even tho it pays very well.
A teacher who chooses to work for peanuts in some third world hell hole is still middle class.
All irrelevant to what is working class and middle class.
Like hell it is. Plenty of those who say drive a f****ng great haul pak in an iron ore mine have SUVs
That isnt what determines middle class either.
Plenty of the well paid working class live like that. In spades with better paid working class jobs like in the mining industry, oil and gas, building houses etc.
Lots of the working class do just that.
That's not what upper class is about either.
That's bullshit too and plenty of the well paid working class have those cars. Including a now retired cop who is nothing even remotely like upper class.
That's bullshit too with pro footballers, film 'stars', fuckwits like the Kardashians etc etc etc.
The distinction between working and middle class isnt about income, it's the type of work you do.
Great swathes of the working class earn a lot more than the worst off middle class, particularly those women whose middle class husbands who have died without making adequate provision for their family. She doesn't become working class when he dies.
That's the snob version. When I worked for charities as a doctor I certainly wasn't middle class. I made less than some unqualified technicians. And certainly less than the small supermarket owner on the corner who left school when he was 12 years old. I could barely afford a 8 year old car and paid rent. No debts, but no luxuries either. Someone that inherits a fortune and does fsck all is "upper class". Ditto a lottery winner. "Classes" are defined by purchasing power and income, not by profession. The country with the largest middle class in the World? Australia (Social-democracy).
Lets face it - your "class" definition is old Brit - if your grand-daddy was upper class you are too, even if you live in the projects. If your grand-daddy was a scottish coal-miner - lower working class - or heaven help you an irish peat farmer - you are boot-licking lower class even if you are a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist.
Bloody brits are worse than the Indians with their "caste" system
So is a teacher or a college prof middle class or working class?
So I guess I was middle class. I taught both high school and technical college. Had the chance to go back to teaching college and turned it down.
Is a computer network specialist a working class or middle class job?
Actually in Ontario today, $100,000 is just upper middle class
-barely.
Middle class runs $50,000 to $200,000 ish income-wize - but has a lot to do with "lifestyle". What kind of housing, what kind of liesure activity, quality of life, etc. It is still possible to live a "middle class" lifestyle on $40,000 if you are carefull (not for a younster starting out though) and there are redneck fools out there who wouldn't make it into the "middle class" if they were sitting on an oil-well like the Clampetts with their mattresses stuffed with hundred dollar bills.
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