(September 10, 2021 at 8:38 am)Spongebob Wrote: I want to say something that's a little off topic for this thread regarding US dollars. Despite the relative good living standard that Americans have enjoyed over the last few decades, we've experienced a good deal of inflation that has gone largely unnoticed except for where wages are concerned. Average inflation year over year has been very low for around 30 years, however, that little bit adds up. Because we've shifted so much production of durable goods and non-durable goods to countries paying poverty wages and we've automated to much production, we've been able to keep some buying power. Yet things that can't be outsourced, like homes and college degrees, have soared in price. So a $4/hr job in 1965 would buy way more than a $10/hr job today even though some of those things seem relatively cheap. There's another thread where someone mentioned how it's cheaper to buy a new washer/dryer than to fix a broken one. That's true because of cheap overseas labor (and automation) even though the US dollar has eroded significantly over the years.
Perhaps you meant $100/hr instead of $10/hr ?
My parents bought a house for $8,000 in 1962 (or so) on a salary of $4000/yr. It would be worth $400,000 today. That is 50 times, when the salary has only gone up around 25x. So, its a 2-1 difference.
