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Historical purchasing power always seems skewed to me. Like, you'll see media or historical documents from the past, and people will talk about the sheer amount of wealth, but then the calculated purchasing power isn’t as much as it feels like everyone is acting. Is it just that we as a society have been getting so much wealthier?
I think there a lot going on that doesn’t get mentioned. First the advance of technology— in 1940, a state of the art entertainment system was a radio. In 1980, it was a color TV and maybe an Atari or later a Nintendo game system with a couple of cartridges. By 1990, you have cable, vcrs, better game systems, and so on. Food is much the same. In the early twentieth century, mustard was spicy, and now it’s like not even comparable to the mild spicy food that you eat all the time. The sheer amount and variety that we expect is different. They felt rich if they had a nice family car, a color TV, and simple food in a fridge that didn’t automatically make ice cubes was plenty. We’d consider that poverty, but they felt rich because technology was moving fast and they could afford to partake. We see a decline where things that used to be things the average person could expect are gradually becoming unaffordable. The mid century saw people able to afford to eat out more, and in the 2020s people can’t afford to eat out as much as they could have 20 years ago. The same is happening with other stuff. The standard of living for most average people is declining.
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Based on talking to my grandparents (very long-lived, so I heard many stories), the inflation numbers downplay the skew. There's no way a working class guy making the inflation-adjusted equivalent of what my grandfather made in 1950/60/70 could ever purchase the quality of life that he was able to afford for his family with a stay at home wife and passel of kids.
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The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there, and like any foreign country Symbols of wealth aren't necessarily easily translated. The great Agatha Christie quote applies:
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