The links are to the Carpe Diem site. It's written by an economics professor. He is comparing what Americans could buy back in the 60s with what we can buy now. Things are better now.
Certainly true for appliances and electronics. However, for a nickel (each) I used to be able to buy...
A coke A candy bar A phone call A cup of coffee. With refills.
A nickel then requires about $0.40 now. Got any of those items for $0.40 recently?
And in '64' gas was 32.9 and smokes were $ . 32 a pack. Jerry
In '65 heating oil was 15 cents a gallon but when I was a teenager in the '50's, 18 cents would get you either a gallon of gas, a quart of milk, a loaf of bread or a pack of smokes.
Gasoline wasn't all that different.
Back in '71 gasoline was 22 cents per gallon at rural service stations, the name brand stations in town were charging 35 cents per gallon. This was in Northeast Alabamastan. :-)
TDD
You may fin this interesting:
I think the pop bottles were 8 oz. way back then. Does a buck fifty sound right for the sixteen ouncers now?
Don't know the price on these.
Did you mean a nickel a minute? That's one thing on your list that has gotten cheaper. Fifteen cents a minute even on my prepaid cell phone.
I think a buck something at McDonald's for the large one.
A better comparison might be instead of comparing dollars comparing the number of minutes working to earn the cost of the various items.
Charlie
Mr. Mark J. Perry should take off his idiot cap and compare how many hours we have to work to buy the same EXACT things we use today with the same EXACT things we used then. You can no longer buy the same exact appliance you used then; in fact I wish you could because it lasted ten times longer. Here are some examples of some things that he REALLY should have compared instead: A five pound bag of Potatoes A pound of 20% fat Ground beef A pound of plain rice Seeing a doctor Seeing a dentist Seeing a lawyer Trash pick-up service (once a week) A kilowatt of electricity used A cubic foot of water used A cubic foot of natural gas used All these have stayed exactly the same.
A buck and a half a sixpack (12oz.).
Long distance = $0
Coke and phone calls, certainly.
True.
The two major items whose prices have outpaced inflation are health care and education.
When I went to Columbia U. in the mid 1970s, a year of tuition cost me $6,800. Today, even allowing for inflation, that's only about 3 months' worth of tuition.
In the last 50 years, the inflation-adjusted cost of health care has risen several hundred percent. Of course, health care today is better than it was 50 years ago. Diseases that were death sentences back then are now treatable.
-- Steven L.
No he meant talk as long as you want for a local call. And a young man could go to the matinee at the movie house for 15 or 20 cents at the same time. Heck 50 cents would get you in most movies, a bag of popcorn, a drink and a nickel left to call for a ride home.
Let's see, last week the cheapest first run movie was $4, the popcorn was
5.50, a small drink 3.75 and there were no pay phones to use so without cell service you were SOL. A prepaid plan cost about 25 cents a minute but you have to buy ahead.Tell the professor to get his head out of his A** and visit the real world.
Colbyt
How about, instead of the lower taxed states reducing the tax *differential*, the higher taxed states reducing the *tax*. All predictable and really dumb.
Manufactured goods are cheaper now due to production automation and manufacture in countries with cheaper labor. Taxes and other threats to liberty by government, along with a litigious society, have lowered the standard of living -- but it's safer now.
Movie admission .09 Pop corn .10 Soft drink .05 candy (2ea.) .01
Grand total .25
That was how I spent my weekly allowance every Saturday morning.
The cheapest gas I remember my dad buying was a dime a gallon. That was for farm use (no tax) and during a price war. It was probably in the mid 1960s but I don't remember for sure.
Isn't it amazing how that works. If the states would operate on the principle of put a tax on it that we can get away with, things would work a lot better. In a free enterprise system, a merchant understands that consumers vote with their feet and the selling price has to be low enough to prevent a customer from going elsewhere. Are you going to drive 50 miles to the state line to save 25 cents on your pack of smokes, or even drive to the next city to save the same quarter? If I was a smoker, I might drive to the next city if the if the price was
2 or 3 dollars less a pack and buy enough to last a while. $5.00 tax a pack and I would get together with friends and make a road trip to pick up a case or three. If I was really ambitious, I would rent a U-Haul and fill it up. :-)TDD
Oh heck, I forgot about the no tax of tractor gas. My dad had a 50gal drum with a hand crank pump on it and every now and then we took it to the local service station to fill it up. He got a bit cross with me for pumping gas into my 66 Doge Dart when I wanted to go on the prowl. Of course back then, the little 6 cylinder car would go forever on a dollars worth of gas. :-)
TDD
Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are learning that people vote with their feet. That goes double for Ohio and New York.
I've been known to drive across the border (to New Hampshire) to save sales tax. No need anymore, there's always the Internet and UPS. ;-)
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.