re: The Shape of Things to Come: 1969 vs 2019, US Dollar value.

That for sure is the truth.

How much money do the modern citizens waste on disposable crap that cannot be repaired?

TV's, washers and driers, refrigerators, ac's stuff that actually had repairmen for it. It cost more but then you could keep it going for almost your life.

Now everything is designed to fail.

One good example is cell phones... boy do we waste a butt ton of money on those as they get obsoleted from software upgrades.

I still have some old rotary phones that I could plug into an active phone line and make a call, not that I have a phone line any longer.

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Awe, you didn't read the rest of my post? That's odd, since you read the first half.

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I read it, it was just irrelevant.

The value of the dollar sunk when we abandoned the gold standard. There is nothing at all backing our currency now.

Don't know the numbers, but how many hours would the average working person need to earn that $700 in 2019 compared to 1969. Comparing minimum wage year over year isn't adequate because that number has been frozen for ten years.

Min wage 1969 - $1.30
Min wage 2019 - $7.25

(7.25/1.30)*100 = $558

But many places are at $12 or even $15 which would yield more buying power now than 1969. The real problem is that medical, college and housing expenses all have inflated at far higher rates than GNP deflator.

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t was a nice, middle class suburb. Her dad was a technician at a tv station, and her mom didn't work. Both parents would need professional 6 figure jobs to have that kind of life and neighborhood today

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I bet that house was a 1200sf three bedroom and they had one car. Ate out once a month and wasted almost no money.

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I myself (who live between Columbiana & HWY 31) will walk to the top of Shades Crest every night then back down on the Southern side of the Mountain where I live.

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Damn that's a hell of a walk.

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Don't know the numbers, but how many hours would the average working person need to earn that $700 in 2019 compared to 1969.

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This means nothing without taking inflation into account. $700 in 1969 equates to $4,893.72 today.

So to make $700 at $1.30/hour would take 538.5 hours or 67.3 days (working 8 hours per day).

To make $4,893.72 at $7.25/hour would take 675 hours or 84 days (working 8 hours per day).

For minimum wage in 2019 to have the same buying power it did in 1969 it would have to be $9.09/hour.

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What do you suppose the value of the US dollar will be 50 years from now, once we monetize our debt severely?

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I can't believe that I will be the first to post this appropriate response to my question:

"About .350 of a dollar."