Back around 1982, you could buy a Big Mac at McDonald’s after working at McDonald’s for half an hour. I know – because I did both.
I worked at McDonald’s when I was still in high school, back in the ’80s, after school and on weekends. I was paid what was then the minimum wage – $3.35 per hour. A Big Mac cost about $1.50.
It looked pretty good, too.
That’s the way it was.
How is it now?
The minimum wage is $7.25 per hour- about twice what it was in the ’80s – And a Big Mac costs about $5.70 cents – about four times what it cost in the ’80s. It doesn’t look so good anymore, either. But the take-home point is you’d have to work about an hour at McDonald’s to be able to afford to eat at McDonald’s today.
Assuming you could afford to drive a car to work.
Back in the ’80s, most teenagers had their own car because it was possible to buy one on a teenager’s means. All it took was about $500 to buy an operable beater and – again – I know because I was there. Even adjusted for inflation – as the blase phrase goes, as if the deliberate devaluation of the buying power of money were some kind of natural, inevitable thing like aging – that $500 ’80s beater car would be about $1,600 today. If you could find an operable car for that sum. A set of “inexpensive” tires typically cost as much today as we paid for a whole car back then.
We could afford gas, too.
Because back then, a gallon cost about $1. That made it financially feasible for 17-year-old kids working weekends and after-school at McDonald’s to put 20 gallons of gas in the tank of their beater muscle car, with a V8 engine.
Again, I know – because I was there.
One of my friends and co-workers at McDonald’s drove a beater ’71 Plymouth GTX with a 440 V8, which he was able to buy with cash because back in the ’80s, muscle cars from the ’60s and ’70s were just old beater cars and if you could scrounge up $2,200 or so – which is what my friend paid for his ’71 GTX – you could buy an old muscle car. And afford to put gas in the tank.
It seems hallucinatory now but if you were to mind-meld with me and could see the parking lot of my high school back in the early ’80s, you’d maybe think you were seeing a classic car show. Only back then, Mustangs and Novas and Chevelles and Chargers and Camaros were just old beaters that were routinely driven to school by teenagers. Today, those same cars – in similar condition – cost more than many middle-aged men can afford to spend. In pristine condition, they routinely go for more than it costs to buy a top-of-the-line Mercedes or Lexus.
We kids back then had no idea how good we had it. And the kids today have no idea.
They have been slow-gypped into penury. They can’t afford to eat at McDonald’s – and working there seems kind of pointless on that account. It costs about $70 to buy 20 gallons of unleaded regular gas today. You’d have to work all day at McDonald’s to be able to fill ‘er up. More than all day, actually. An eight hour shift at $7.25 would gross you just shy of $60. There are taxes to be paid out of that before you see any of that – including higher Socialist Insecurity “contributions” these kids will never see as “benefits.”
You’d need to work closer to two shifts at McDonald’s to be able to fill up a beater muscle car’s tank with 20 gallons of gas.
Of course, a kid working at McDonald’s today can’t afford a beater muscle car in the first place, so it’s an irrelevance. But when he can’t even afford to buy a Big Mac plus fries and a Coke without spending 25 percent of what he earned – pre-tax – after working all day on that Big Mac, plus fries and a Coke, it’s hard to work out why it’s worth working at McDonald’s in the first place.
The tragedy is that may of today’s kids – understandably frustrated, understandably resentful – do not understand the reason for their enserfment. Why they can’t afford to work at McDonald’s – and forget driving to work there. Or eat there.
They blame the free market. Which is like blaming a duck for barking.
What’s happened to make eating at McDonald’s unaffordable – and working there a form of sort-of voluntary slavery – is the devaluation of the buying power of money, which is a mechanism not many adults comprehend. Few know that a private banking cartel sells debt to the government – and charges it (and thereby, us) interest on these “loans.” This cartel – which is styled the “Fed” – a deliberate and sinister word-play intended to get people to think it’s the government that’s doing this to them – can increase the supply of money just like that, devaluating the buying power of the money already in circulation and via this clever trick, suck the value out of working.
But the kids feel the Bern – and if it’s not tamped out somehow, so will we all.
. . .
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Ok,
You Guys have covered all the bases ….Sooo, how about “an inflation fighter Kool deal” reminisce?
Landed in Bali on May 1 1998, the country (Indonesia) was in a state of collapse (97-98/ SEAsia economic contraction + regime change)…
Rupiah 8,300..per $1.00 US on may 1.. arrival
12,500/per on may 19th “Bailout date to Singapore”…So,
North coast Bali…dive “resort” at Tulamben….
Proprietor states…”If you dive with us I give you a discount….”keys please”..
the place is about 18/26 sqft….
Amenities…..
Individual Cabanas with canopied bed, no hot water (unnecessary on the equator)
and a mandi to self-flush the toilet…also no aircon….quite doable with the ceiling fan…
the front porch overlooks the Bali sea about 50 ft away…
Looks good to me…..Ok pal how much is the room if I dive with you guys?
“35,000 rupiah per night”…..I mentally calculated the exchange rate de jour…
And blurted out “Wow that’s almost $3.40 US”…
The Dude thought I balked and he blurts out “breakfast for 2 is included”!
Those were the days my Friends..
In 1985 I bought a beautiful red on red 68 Chrysler 300 2 door hardtop for a cool $500. My job was bagging groceries at a local grocery store for $3.35/hr. Gas was 89 cents a gallon. She held 23 gallons. I had a voluptuous girlfriend that was built for sin! It did not take a lot of money to take her out to a movie and dinner. Dessert was parking in some out of the way place for an hour before taking her home. She had to be home by 11:00 so then it was off to pick up one of my confederates and a six pack of Falstaff tall cans for a midnight buzz. Damnation things were good.
That ’68 300 would be worth quite a bit now!
[…] Guest Post by Eric Peters […]
Impoverishment and famine are not a bug of socialism… It is a feature.
Indeed, Jerry –
Of course, the irony is the youth who form the nucleus of the Left’s useful idiots think that because they have never known hunger they will never be hungry.
The youth are in for a horrible shock when it dawns on them that they, too, just might starve to death. And caused by their own stupidity no less. And all because they thought they could get something for nothing. Nope it did not work for them either.
May they not only know hunger, but outright starvation. This “town” is long overdue for an enema….
In 1913 the price of gold was $20 per ounce….it only took $20 to buy an ounce…
The price of gold was allowed to rise to $35 per ounce by January 1934….now it took $35 to buy an ounce…the was dollar losing it’s value…ripping off working slaves…
In 1971 Nixon suspended convertibility of the dollar to gold…temporarily….then they really crancked up the printing presses….now it takes $2500 to buy an ounce….ripping off the working slaves has got far worse……
Those closest to the fiat dollar printer benefit the most…the slaves go broke….
now they want to speed up the printing presses far more…hyper inflation…$200 loaves of bread….and higher taxes….the slaves bankrupt…own nothing….
Back in the 1800’s on the gold standard, prices actually went down….but they say now deflation…prices going down is bad…..
Yeah, but just imagine how high the GDP will be when we have $200 loaves of bread and cardboard crapshacks (starter homes) start at just $12,000,000. It’ll be amazing! So Much Winning! ☮
Mortgage in 1913 and in 2024
2024 mortgage….
House cost $600,000 20% down 30 year mortgage @6% monthly payment $3202.14 $870,000 total…..
monthly income $4000.00 per month…mortgage….$3202 per month
1913 mortgage…..
House cost $3000 20% down 20 year mortgage @6% monthly payment $19.71 total $3900
monthly income $50.00 per month…mortgage….$19.71 per month
Gold was valued at a fixed exchange rate of $20.67/oz in 1913. The average annual income in 1913 was roughly $600 per year…..In other words 30 ounces of gold per year…..in 2024 dollars about $75,800 per year…..with no income tax….
The average salary in 2024 is roughly $60,000 per year or 24 ounces of gold, i.e. 20% below what it was in 1913 when it was 30 ounces of gold per year…..income tax is payable so net income is about $48,000 per year about 19 ounces of gold per year income….37% lower then the 30 ounces of gold income in 1913….
…plus other income robbing taxes are payable also in 2024….
Henry Ford’s $5 per day is well into the six figures today in equivalent lifestyle.
Mother of All Housing Bubbles
By David Stockman
September 2, 2024
“America’s bubblicious economy will soon hit another milestone of sorts—-the $50 trillion mark with respect to the market value of owner-occupied residential real estate. At the present moment, this figure (purple line) stands at $46 trillion (Q1 2024), which is nearly 2X its pre-crisis level of $24 trillion in Q4 2006. It’s also 8X its level when Greenspan took the helm at the Fed ($5.6 trillion) after Q2 1987 and a staggering 51X the $900 billion value of all owner-occupied homes when Tricky Dick did the dirty deed at Camp David in August 1971.
Needless to say, neither household incomes nor the overall US economy have grown at anything near those magnitudes.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/09/david-stockman/mother-of-all-housing-bubbles/
———————–
Needless to say if the current housing superbubble pops it will have huge effects on banks, people’s wealth, willingness to borrow, etc. But it will become affordable again.
The long term rule of thumb for real estate investors is that a home is worth 100 times the monthly rent.
If a house rents for $1500 a month, it is worth $150,000. Currently real estate in southern Oregon is many multiples higher that that metric. Case in point, last week I did a job for a guy who rents his cottage down town where I live, he gets $1500 a month rent. So to find his home’s worth, I go to Zillow, click on map and keep zooming until I see the individual homes with a price, his house is worth $457,100.
So his cottage is 3.05x overvalued. His home would have to decline 68% to be valued correctly (assuming rent stays the same).
BTW, I used to build houses, and I can zoom in and see what they are worth, houses I spent $35K to build are now going for $850,000. You can do this for any house you used to own, to see what it is worth right now.
My buddy bought a 1971 Bonneville sedan in 79 for 200 dollars we were both employed at Esso station for 5 bucks per hour use to race another friend in a Ford Ltd on Friday and Saturday on various fire roads around Kemptown and Riversdale. It was a beater and was beaten. Good times were had by all , tranny eventually went from all the brakestands and other abuse inflicted on the poor Pontiac.
And a TH 350 could be had for $75 from a wrecking yard, and swapped out in a weekend. Good for a few more years.
McDonald’s Secret Ingredients You Never Knew About
So you pay $5.00? for a big mac now instead of $1.00 ? a long time ago…..but what do you get for your $5.00?
McDonalds used to have great fries…cooked in tallow…someone…a religious group…complained…now they are cooked in poisonous, cheap, crappy, canola oil….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDQofCXuYik
Nixon himself was quoted as saying….going off the gold standard was the biggest ripoff of the working man ever…..
We’ve discussed how no one actually owns their property, when it can be repossessed for non-payment of property taxes. Now it turns out that even personal property, bought and paid for, can be seized if the US fedgov claims it was ‘sanctioned’:
‘The United States has seized Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro’s airplane after determining that its acquisition was in violation of US sanctions, among other criminal issues. The US flew the aircraft to Florida on Monday, according to two US officials.
‘Attorney General Merrick Garland said that “the Justice Department seized a Dassault Falcon 900EX aircraft we allege was illegally purchased for $13 million through a shell company and smuggled out of the US for use by Nicolás Maduro and his cronies.”
‘The plane was purchased from a company in Florida, the Justice Department said, and was illegally exported in April 2023 from the United States to Venezuela through the Caribbean.’
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/02/politics/us-seizes-venezuela-president-maduros-airplane
Madouche-o, as I call him, is a nasty piece of work who has single-handedly depopulated his own country. But this doesn’t justify the US fedgov unilaterally seizing Venezuela’s property, after declaring that Venezuela isn’t allowed to buy anything from the US.
Meanwhile, the ‘Biden’ fedgov openly steals Syria’s oil from an illegal US military base and hands it over to the little apartheid colony nearby. Having reduced itself to the level of car thieves and squatters, the US fedgov has shed any pretense of dignity and fair play. It is a marauding outlaw regime, just like Madouche-o’s.
The criminals masquerading as “government” have always been pirates. ☮
All the Coppers have to assert is that fistful.of dead Presidents is the proceeds of “illicit activity”, and they can grab it from you. A criminal complaint related to the alleged ill-gotten gain isn’t necessary. So, when you protest to the cop about nabbing your $500, assuming you don’t get whanged over your head with his baton as his “answer”, he’ll probably reply, “you can file suit, at your expense, to recover…the $400!”
Take a one dollar bill to the bank and try to redeem it for gold….which was possible a long time ago…..the bank won’t do it because the conversion to gold is temporarily suspended…thank Nixon….
In 1933, when the government stopped the conversion of notes…paper dollars… into gold, gold was required to be given to the federal government at a price of $20.67 per troy ounce.
The price was allowed to rise to $35 per ounce by January 1934….so if you redeem $1.00..in fiat paper dollars… you are supposed to get 1/35th of an ounce of gold in return….
there is a huge problem now….that would require the bank to give you ….$72.45 worth of gold….1/35th of an ounce…. for your one dollar paper bill…..
$35.00 = 1 ounce of gold…1/35th of an ounce of gold….in today’s fiat dollars that equals….$72.45……1/35th of an ounce of gold = one dollar….
In 1968, the requirement to hold gold reserves against Federal Reserve notes was repealed. In 1971, the U.S….Nixon…. announced it would not freely convert dollars at the exchange rate with gold….. convertibility suspended…temporarily….
Convertibility returning in 2030?…back to the gold standard?….
Stage 1…
Promissory notes convertible for monetary precious metals ….to get confidence in them…
Stage 2…
Suspend convertibility and expand the supply exponentially….Until…
Stage 3….
Gold and silver revalued to account for all the promissory notes created since the last time….cycle repeated….back to stage 1….
We are at stage 2 in 2024….
Stage 3….Convertibility returning in 2030?…back to the gold standard?….
If it happens in 2030….what if gold is revalued at $250,000.00 per ounce?….it will take $250,000.00 of your paper fiat dollars redeemed to get one ounce of gold…..if you do it today it only costs $2,500.00 to get an ounce of gold……
Or they convert your current fiat paper dollars, to new redeemable paper gold backed dollars, at a reverse split ratio of 100 for one….
You can fight fire with fire….it is legal to create a promissory note….you can do it too…see video…
A promissory note is supposed to say…. who you are going to pay, what you will pay and when you are going to pay….but…the fiat cash in circulation today doesn’t say when you get paid….or with what….a long time ago it did…….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtOclLjFXBI
Another video on promissory notes…
Explains how promissory notes work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=230E18_suTU
Stage 3….Convertibility returning in 2030?…back to the gold standard?….
So the marxists have a clear runway to put the pedal to the metal and hyper inflate till 2030?….part of the great reset?….finance the great reset?…….AOC gets her MMT?….
Those closest to the fiat dollar printer benefit the most…the slaves go broke….
The SP500 going up just shows the inflation….or go to a grocery store….
We are at stage 2 in 2024….
Stage 2…
Suspend convertibility and expand the fiat dollar supply exponentially….Until…
Stage 3….
Gold and silver revalued to account for all the promissory notes created since the last time….cycle repeated….back to stage 1….
Stage 3….Convertibility returning in 2030?…back to the gold standard?….
If it happens in 2030….what if gold is revalued at $250,000.00 per ounce?….it will take $250,000.00 of your paper fiat dollars redeemed to get one ounce of gold…..if you do it today it only costs $2,500.00 to get an ounce of gold……
Or they convert your current fiat paper dollars, to new redeemable paper gold backed dollars, at a reverse split ratio of 100 for one….
Stage 3….Convertibility returning in 2030?…back to the gold standard?….
At the same time bring in a parallel CBDC….and play more games?….it is discussed in the video…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtOclLjFXBI
To be fair, and this isn’t an attempt to refute anything you’ve written, almost no one is working for the government-mandated minimum wage of $7.25. Most states and even some cities have mandated a higher figure, with numerous businesses paying even more than what’s “required”.
thousands of illegals…and others work for less then the minimum……this helps the slave owner control group owned big corporations, make more profit….
cheaper slaves to replace the unliked current white slaves…..
Ah, but it’s O-K. Today, mommy and daddy will just buy ’em a car (a nearly new or actually new one) and pay for the insurance AND the gas! (And buy ’em a new one when they wreck it). Come on now! You wouldn’t want little Dylan and Aiden and Lakeysha to have to suffer the abuse of learning how to be responsible and productive, would you? (Well, no chance of that these days, since as you mentioned, non parent-subsidized car ownership for teens and even many young 20’s is really no longer feasible).
[ learning how to be responsible and productive, would you? ] Arthur
responsible and productive be racist!
Well into their 20s, many of them don’t even want a car. Even if its given to them free. That was the basis of our freedom as 15, 16, and 17 year olds. Its ugly, what a small closed loop everyone is being reduced to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdN_wifiJEs
☮
The Big Mac is mass produced for a long time and can be used as a true inflation index (outside of government data massaging) and it is also used for a true measure of currencies valuations.
Wiki “The Big Mac Index is a price index published since 1986 by The Economist as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and providing a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries. It “seeks to make exchange-rate theory a bit more digestible.”[1] The index compares the relative price worldwide to purchase the Big Mac, a hamburger sold at McDonald’s restaurants.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:01_The-Price-of-McDonalds-Big-Mac_World-Map.png
I like the metric of calculating how many minutes of work it takes to buy a big mac, or how many hours of work to buy an ounce of gold. People used to be paid a 20 dollar gold coin per week. Gold is at $2500 an ounze, how many day laborers get 2500 a week (10,000 a month)?
YJ,
Big Mac index?…..hmmm… will agree McDonalds has insinuated its presence globally…
(and Australian egg Mcmuffins have the best bacon..period)….
However, I base my inflation index on essential consumables….
In my case the “King of the World for establishing standard cost” …
The venerable 650mm (22oz) Heineken ..”Grande”, “Kinger”…etc.
After all, it’s been Global (Dutch East India Co.) before MickyD existed…
Unfortunately, while these refreshing delights are usually available in foreign supermarkets
I only can find them at 7/11’s et al thus skewing toward “the convenience store markup”..distortion
Anyhow, I’ve got a lot more to report on beer can “Shrinkflation ” soon..
Worked at a tire recapping store. I was the only employee 🙂 Cleaned, brushed, wrapped the new rubber and baked (used steam in the molds) until well done. Earned $5 per hour. This was 1967. Gas was about $0.35 (Full Serve) per gallon. Could buy a pair of “American Made” Levi’s for $4.50. The buying power would be about $47.00 today according to the lying corpgov. If truth was known probably closer to $80.00.
Most Americans back then,,, like most Americans today could give a shit. They were/are living the good life,,, had their Rock and Roll,,, and didn’t care what corpgov did. Changed the American Dream from Opportunity to having a mortgage.
Later, People like Edwin Vieira tried explaining the monetary ignorance (read Pieces of eight) but was ignored. Recently an acquaintance told me he didn’t care the low buying power of the dollar,,, he just wanted to be a millionaire. The new American where vanity trumps reality! Why do you think the idiots are buying battery cars.
Corpgov keeps pounding into our heads that the reason we have no industry is because it costs too much to produce in America. Hell, the Mexican Peso is stronger than the dollar… yet “American” corporations,,, as I write,,, are moving production there and dumbshit Americans are buying their wares. The best selling truck in Merica is the hecho en Mexico Silverado. Ford and others have plants there.
Today the universities are telling us the abused, ignored and racist constitution is our problem and needs re-written. Americans and Wall Street are screaming for the Fed to to start (easing) again. Easing,,, A nice innocuous word for hyper-printing. Most failing great nations failed when their money went to zero.
When the body finally gives it up,,, Americans will blame the economy,,, communism,,, fascism,,, socialism,,, Trumpism,,, Kamalism,,, whateverism,,, anything and everything except themselves. They never got rid of the bad apples in the barrel and never will.
Today,,, to hold the highest office in the land, first, one must show primary allegiance to a particular small nation in the middle east. Then the ‘right’ of females (these are not women) to off their trapped offspring. And last of all… Hate Russia because ??????.
My phone rings off the hook. Billionaires/Millionaires begging for money they know we don’t have so they can keep their riches safe and sound.
” The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable. ” H.L. Mencken
Which is gov’s reason for pubic skools.
I have my own library of older physics and math books and one of my favorite things about them is when I can see the price on the dust jackets when they haven’t been price clipped. A quantum mechanics book that I have from 1968 was priced at $12.50 or $112 today, an 803% increase according to the inflation calculator. Moreover, the publishing quality of the book is much better than the ones published today, which can easily fall apart if not carefully handled. So not only are things significantly more expensive but the quality is much lower as well.
Reading the comments on this post as someone who wasn’t born until 1988 does make me feel that I missed out on better times economically at least. I realize that things weren’t perfect back then but at the same time I understand what the true culprit is and I wish that more people in my generation and younger would understand this. We really need another Ron Paul style movement of “End the Fed!” more than ever.
There is a solution to the USA’s unholy “allegiance” to israel.
There is a law already on the books that requires foreign agents and institutions to register with the State Department–the “Foreign Agents Registration Act” (FARA).
Establishing and the recognition of israel as a “jewish state” could be its undoing, at least here in the USA. Since israel IS a foreign country, its supporters ARE bond by FARA to register themselves.
Require EVERY jew living in the USA to register as a foreign agent under FARA.
This would force politicians, movers and shakers, and other influencers to come out of the woodwork and would expose them as fifth-columnists for israel.
Let’s use our own laws to take back our country.
Just lease back Osciwenciem, Poland, and get Birkenau going again.
It gets worse the further back you go. When I was in college in the 60’s a Big Mac was a quarter; my first car was a ‘57 Ford, a hand-me-down from my parents, and gas was less than a buck, though I don’t remember the exact amount. That Ford had a 312 V8 with a two barrel carb that I rebuilt and tuned so the engine would idle as smooth as a Swiss watch. Of course the suspension sucked like most cars back then and the rust eventually got to it but it was great while it lasted.
A private bank (or anyone) printing worthless currency at will is called counterfeiting. This will land any one of us in prison if we are cought doing it, yet most folks don’t have the balls to put light on the elephant in the room. But exposing these criminals in mass is the only way forward. They have turned our beautiful world in to a sh*thole and the only way out is through them.
Eric deserves great respect for shining the light where it is truly most needed. Thank you Eric!
Kamala’s sisters of three generations ago protest high post-WW II food prices: ‘We want price controls by Xmas.’
https://tinyurl.com/4hv7vv68
As you can infer from the ‘Xmas’ orthography, the New York-based Congress of American Women was run by … well, you can guess: the usual suspects.
Inflation is the very purpose of fiat currency. There is no other reason to use it.
I feel bad for young people today. Generations of public education has ensured their stupidity.
Social media has ensured an inability to reason.
Kamala can cackle and they are oblivious to her truth.
That is because cackles is speaking their language. It is not so much oblivious. More rather it is a mutual understanding between them.
The 80’s were the good times. I got my $265.00 ‘74 Olds Omega; green/white interior, 3 on the tree, lots of bondo (Pennsylvania car), inline 6 cylinder and a K-mart Kracko stereo. My first job was working at the horse stables at Skyland on the Shenandoah national park at $3.35/hr summers & weekends during high school. I had more money in my wallet back then than I do today and more freedom also. That America back then beats out today’s nation hands down! I’m guessing all the lunatics that were released from the asylums in the 70’s hadn’t had time yet to infiltrate academia and the government yet back then. Now, they are in charge and doing a fine job of turning this nation into a shithole!
You had a badge-engineered Chevy Nova. Nice car, but GM kept believing it could bullshit the American motorist, and it’s found we ain’t so dumb.
Same goes for the Dummycrats and Republicunts.
Happy Labor Day! Your 8 hour break will be logged on the payroll system.
I’m almost 59.5 years old. That will be mid-October. I can confirm all of the points about the before time, and more (!), that are laid out in this article. Heck, before I could legally drive on the road, we kids had all manner of off-road vehicles, e.g., dirt bikes, mini-bikes, ATCs, and mini-cars. So I also remember less-than $1/gal gas, because we’d have to scrounge loose change (and/or beg & plead with parents for change) to get a gallon or so.
I remember poking around some of the mom & pop “full service” gas stations which usually had service bays as well. We would see old signs discarded in the back, from years gone by, with prices near 25 cents a gallon.
We would also scrounge change for a candy bar and such. The very same names that you see on the shelf, minus the shrinkflation, for 5 or 10 cents, when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. We could walk (gasp, all by ourselves!!) to Thrifty’s and get a scoop or two for about the same price. Sugar cone didn’t cost more back then.
I used to see classified ads for used cars. Old Cadillac El Dorados, Fleetwood Broughams, etc., for a couple grand. Yeah, not in good shape but almost always would stay on the road with the tools and techniques that a teenager could scrounge up in the garage or with help from friends. Those carburetors weren’t much different than the ones we took apart and played with on the dirt bikes and mini bikes.
When I was finally legal to drive, my mother gave me totaled Datsun 510 wagon — my first wagon! I drove that to the Taco Bell in Indio, CA where I worked for minimum wage. I could afford plenty of gas and fast food — my favorite was Dell Taco just across and down the street from where I worked. Carl’s Junior was the second favorite and often a hang-out for us during high school as it was just outside the perimeter of the school which was open access, i.e., students could just walk on/off campus as they pleased (there were still truancy officers, mind you, but no ultra-max prison security at high schools yet).
Anyway, the bottom line is that the govt. *did* do this to us, i.e., stole all of the prosperity that we had and ability to enjoy life. They did this by merging with corporations, aka fascism, which basically own and operate “the government” which they own.
It may as well be a fairy tale at this point, like actual fairies fluttering around the land of Atlantis or Pan, because its to far from present reality. It’s never coming back. It’s stolen forever, and the people doing this theft/robbery will never be done doing it.
Not until it all implodes in one smoking heap of human misery, suffering, and death.
How’s that song go?? You know the one about being an American, where at least I know that I’m free? Free to do what they say. Free to let them take what they want from me. Free to be conscripted and sent to my death if necessary. Free to be murdered by the state for the crime of disobedience.
Totally worth it, right?
Hi XM,
Yup. When those who can still remember are gone, the past will be gone – and what’s going on now will be considered “normal.” It’s only been a little more than 20 years since Nahhhhhhnlevven, as a for-instance and those born after it think it’s “normal” to be felt up as a precondition of being allowed to get on an airplane. That America is a “homeland.”
And so on.
Hey Eric!
Maybe we should take “ol’ Woods” (as in Tom) advice and write a book! “The Before Time — The Freedom and Prosperity that has been Stolen from Us”. Get 10 guys that can write a couple/few chapters each. Get Tom’s advice on how to get it published, etc. (I’m in his School of Life after all.)
Amazon best seller?! An action of intolerable freedom of speech?! You never know!
Great idea XM,
I’m in. Many here who write in other genres. Love the title also. It would make an interesting read about the times before, from different geographical perspectives with the common thread of how nice things once were.
Sorry boomer guys, we love ya all, but your story is already known far and wide. There are certainly enough GenX contributors here to make this a GenX tale in its entirety.
That is the big difference between the slave owning control group…who have roots going back 6000 years…they wrote stuff down, have a history….the slaves?…no history, didn’t write stuff down……
Try finding the history of the white tribes in Europe before the control group came in and took over, genocided them, enslaved them…..
9/11 seems to be a big inflection point for all the wrong reasons. People got used to the militarized police state and 24-7 government surveillance. But the government paid for it all with debt and inflation.
Fact: in 2000, the national debt was $5 trillion. Today it is $35 trillion! Most of my life I was able to save money by buying and fixing beat-up, rusted old cars for $500-$750. When I bought my house in 2001 (for $77,000) my wife was driving a $500 Ford that I had fixed, had a $1500 Ranger. (The truck was an ’89, so it was 12 years old… and I had bought it about 4 years prior. Try finding an 8-year old truck for $1500 today).
I honestly don’t know how I would ever keep up at today’s prices.
Watch out….they say they need another $100 trillion??….for the net zero agenda….to convert back to the stone age….
I still say too bad the supposed “terrorists” from “Dirka, dirka, Islamic Jihad” went with that ‘757’ that took out an outer ring section of the Pentagon, that ill-fated day. That was SOME flying, to score a hit that’d be tough for even a Thonahawk cruise missile to make!
Devaluation of the currency is caused by the open-ended printing press that the fed has become.
The same amount of gold that it took to buy a car in 1930 is enough to buy a car today.
Tying “lawful money” to gold or silver is the solution that will never be implemented.
“The same amount of gold that it took to buy a car in 1930 is enough to buy a car today.”
BINGO
Amazes me how few people think about prices vs. gold instead of dollar denominated price.
“The same amount of gold that it took to buy a car in 1930 is enough to buy a car today.”
…but…in 1930 incomes were about 30 ounces of gold per year…in 2024… after tax incomes are only about 19 ounces of gold per year….plus today there is other income robbing taxes….
Indeed a silver quarter would buy a gallon of gas in the 1950s, and it will actually buy more than 2 gallons today. The people’s currency, and the value of their enterprise, has been entirely destroyed. I laugh heartily when leftists claim the USA is a rich country, we can afford socialism. Were just as poor as the peasants anywhere else.
Remember the Liberty Dollar? Corpgov found Bernard Nothaus guilty of counterfeiting…. His coins were round. At the time the Mint told him the coins were okay.
Ron boy (Paul),,, wonder boy of the time was pushing competing currencies,,, Ron boy wouldn’t even show up as a character witness. Ron is an asshole. Stole a lot of peoples campaign contributions when he never really tried to run for president.
On March 18, 2011, Von Nothaus was pronounced guilty of “making coins resembling and similar to United States coins. You could take most of the world to court for that!
Corpgov stole all the silver in an fbi raid in 2007. Not one person showed up to help Von Nauthaus when he was convicted. He never served jail time as the Judge finally let him go.
The entire incident showed the cowardice of the people when someone goes up against the tyranny of corpgov.
Today most haven’t even heard of Von Nothaus but still push thieving Ron by as a living saint.
Ron by == Ron boy.
I consider Ron Paul as one of the top ten con artists of our time. He always talked the talk but not once walked the walk.
There are a staggering amount of people brought to their senses due to Dr Paul going against the Neocons in 2008 and 2012. His legacy has very little to do with whatever your ideals are. I think he once said something to the effect of “I’m an imperfect messenger but the message is perfect.”
I mean I guess his con created a bunch of new libertarians which is a pretty good thing, unless you don’t need anymore help?
The price of gold was allowed to rise to $35 per ounce by January 1934….
so if you redeem $1.00..in fiat paper dollars… you are supposed to get 1/35th of an ounce of gold in return….
$35.00 = 1 ounce of gold…one dollar should buy…. 1/35th of an ounce of gold….but….in today’s fiat dollars that costs….$72.45……
So the 2024 dollar only buys about 1/74th of what it should….it used to buy 1/35th of an ounce of gold….which means it’s purchase power now is only 1.38 cents instead of 100 cents…..$0.0138
A dollar now only worth….1.38 cents ….a cute way to rob the slaves….
There are people in my family who either blame Trump or capitalism for the economic problems of the past several years. However, what they all conveniently ignore is government actions (such as mass printing of money, ever increasing taxes, handing out LOTS of taxpayer money to foreign countries & illegal immigrants, and endless wars), the federal reserve, cronyism, corporate capture of government agencies, etc.
Less than one in a thousand can correctly identify the root cause of inflation.
For all those that received a COVID stimulus check, cashed it, and spent it. Quit yer’ bitchin’. LOL!
This weekend, wandering a vintage collectible store while on vacation in another city, I was struck by the fact that toys are not just different but *gone* from store shelves.
“Star Wars” in particular is once again in hibernation, similar to mid 90s, but I don’t think that the brand is coming back this time. Beyond the problems with the currently produced series and movies, the infrastructure just isn’t there to get the toys out anymore.
My generation got fascinated by the possibility of $20 Reeboks 40 years ago and never gave up the dream.
Imaginations would start firing when someone’s family member would return from a tour with the Army in South Korea, still a very impoverished country back then, toting a few pairs of in-box Reebok sneakers which they picked up new in the box in a market in Seoul.
The question would inevitably get asked, “Why can’t we get that here?”
Reebok Classic sneakers cost about $80 new from a US store in 1984. That’s about what they run on the company’s website today, roughly $20 in mid 80s dollars.
Dream fulfilled … but at a cost, including the bankruptcy of the parent company and a few changes of hands IIRC.
‘Few know that a private banking cartel sells debt to the government – and charges it (and thereby, us) interest on these “loans.”’ — eric
This is slightly misstated. The government issues debt in the form of US Treasury obligations, which the Federal Reserve then ‘buys’ using thin-air keystroke currency — giving the Fed a purloined income to finance its depredations on the public.
This is a total inversion of how central banks began, holding precious metals and issuing currency backed by (and redeemable into) those metals — as in silver-certificate paper dollars, which used to actually circulate. As Wikipedia recalls,
Central bank gold and silver holdings are pure assets, without any attached debt liabilities. Gold and silver cannot default, as Treasury bonds could do, rendering the Federal Reserve’s holdings of them impaired in value.
By ordinary statutory definition, the Federal Reserve is a fraud and its governing board is a conspiracy of counterfeiters, who enjoy the exorbitant privilege of auditing themselves. If elected president, I will arrest this gang of brazen thieves, convict them, and put them to work in a chain gang, pickin’ cotton in the hot, hot sun as my hungry German shepherds slobber and snarl inches from their scared, sweating faces.
p.s. Huge, all-caps blue italics seem to be a default setting when the blockquote html tag is invoked. I dindu nuffin.
Where is the documentation for how to use style tags in these comments?
Do you remember back in the day, when some terminals only had capital letters? It’s weird how that became “shouting” to some degree. It’s only “shouting” if I tell my head that’s what it is! But all the freaking “on the spectrum” people freak-the-fuck out about all caps.
In the old days, before style tags were available, it was quite common place to use all-caps for EMPHASIS, as is done with bold/italic these days. And nobody would ask, “why are you shouting?!” and head to their safe spaces for a cry.
“They bravely turned their tales and fled… “, from the shouting and violence of ALL CAPS here in the home of the brave! 🙄
HTML style tags are generic; can be looked up on the internet.
Probably more style tags could nullify the blue all-caps italic font which blockquote brings up by default in this forum.
But one dares not try it without an edit button. The screen might start to buzz, flash and crackle, before emitting blue smoke and going dark.
Copy, and paste as “plain text”. like this,
In March 1964, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon halted redemption of silver certificates for silver dollar coins; during the following four years, silver certificates were redeemable in uncoined silver “granules”. All redemption in silver ceased on June 24, 1968.
“The government issues debt in the form of US Treasury obligations, which the Federal Reserve then ‘buys’ using thin-air keystroke currency — giving the Fed a purloined income to finance its depredations on the public.”
That’s really close but skips the step that gives it a veneer of legitimacy while simultaneously making it much worse than what you explain would have been — the Federal Open Market Committee, which may be a committee, but the rest is a lie.
Treasuries are sold to investors (think “banks” like Goldman-Sachs, JP Morgan, etc) who then “sell” them to the Fed for the imaginary bux that get credited to their account. That’s the way asset prices get driven up. But we see from COVID bux that skipping the FOMC gives us not asset bubbles, but rather consumer goods inflation.
Yes, asset bubbles usually result in increased CPI, but injecting high-power money directly at the consumer level is a disaster. If you want to loot the treasury, it is critical to avoid the shocks, and go with the slower, less obvious means whereby the investor class reaps the benefits before price inflation kicks in.
Will those GERMAN shepherds be ok with a KOSHER diet?
“Free” is the siren song of slavery.
Yep. 7 words of pure reality.
Just to show how much inflation we’re suffering, considering the following: the “cheap” Walmart Great Value eggs cost $2.28 per carton on June 1. Today that same carton costs $5.57—a staggering 144% increase in just three months! A bag of Cafe Bustelo (one of Walmart’s cheapest coffees) cost $4 three months ago; today it’s $4.34 (up 8%). A pack of Oscar Mayer bacon was $6.98 in June; today it’s $7.48 (up 7%). And the media keep telling us inflation is “cooling off”!
Let me guess, you live in one of the states that mandated cage-free eggs? Eggs at my local grocery store are no where near that price.
Those states requiring cage-free housing: California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.
Regulations have consequences.
I’m in North Carolina, but the prices I collect each week (for my own personal inflation index) are from Walmart.com. So I’m assuming those prices I quoted are nationwide.
And that my friend is why you shouldn’t trust the lying media.
National average is biased by those states that have mandated cage-free with more states still planning to mandate cage-free but haven’t hit the implementation date yet.
Better start building that chicken coop!!!
Your point is well taken, but when I plug in various local Walmart locations online, the same price for eggs is coming up. The same price also comes up when I type in Walmart locations for a couple of other states (namely TN and VA). So I have to assume that price isn’t just an average but applies to multiple states.
I just plugged in my local Walmart – one dozen eggs. $3.42
Plenty of other ways to spend $5 on them. 18 pack is about $5. Same for “organic” LOL, and cage free.
For what it’s worth, Walmart = Government Grocery. A major source of their revenue is EBT.
At least where I’m at, Walmart often isn’t even the cheapest. My local grocery chain has eggs cheaper than Walmart.
As an aside – why track your own inflation index. Shadowstats.com does a great job.
And judging by the typical enormity of most Negresses that swipe those EBTs, I’d say they’re not remotely going hungry.
In 2024 the average price for sirloin steak is about $12 per pound
In 1913 the quality of beef was far higher…sirloin steak cost about 24 cents per pound….
They are placing the blame in the wrong place. It is too much money chasing too few goods. You can blame the Federal Reserve for this. Also, no gold to back up the paper dollars, and any wonder prices are this high? Some 130 (that I last read) are joining BRICS and trading outside the dollar. Just wait until China and the rest of the world dump the dollar. Great Depression 2.0 is going to make 1929 look like a walk in the park.
Special emphasis on “too few goods.” The government’s scamdemic-era policies did irreparable damage to our nation’s supply chain while destroying countless businesses. Biden–and those mysterious “fires”–did the rest by shutting down gas refineries, food processing plants, etc.
In 1979 I drove a 1970 Toyota Corona. My dad bought it in 1979 for $500 and sold it a few years later for $500. Good times. The car would sometimes overheat on the way to school, but otherwise we managed with it. I had freedom and it didn’t break down too often. When it did, we dealt with it. I don’t know what my dad paid for insurance. I earned $2.65 per hour cleaning rooms.
Wifey and I ate out at Chick-Filet a few weeks ago. Two simple meal deals with dessert were $32. In 1974 I remember buying small DQ ice cream cones for 15 cents each plus one penny for tax. The same cone costs over $2.50 now. Sales taxes were 4% then. Now they are 7%.
“ Sales taxes were 4% then. Now they are 7% “
When I was a kid in the ‘60s sales tax in WA was around 3.5%, now around 10% depending local add ons.
So, not only has inflation quadrupled prices but the “state” has about tripled the RATE they collect. And they still whine about revenue shortfalls. What a scam.
Fast food I typically don’t bother with. I can plop frozen chicken breaded nuggets in the toaster oven for about 15% of the price from those Phony, virtue-signaling Christinans. Ever since their founder, S Truett Cathy, passed on, they’ve become the epitome of “cuckservatives”.
Eric: They blame the free market. Which is like blaming a duck for barking.
Some of that might be our educational system that teaches everything but what you need. Do the schrools even teach civics or economics anymore? I doubt it.
Heaven forbid that students learn the 3 R’s along with history, science, economics, home ec and shop classes. That way at least they would know where they came from and might well see where they were headed.
The sad thing is that people now don’t even realize what they don’t know makes them easier to control. Interesting times ahead.
I agree, Landru –
Government schools are designed to do two things. One, they are designed to gimp the development of critical thinking. Two, they are designed to reward excellence at rote-repetition of orthodoxies. Voila – the useful idiots Lenin wrote about.
You know, that’s yet another thing that was gradually stolen from us. Sure, public schools were rarely beyond average. Higher income area schools naturally were better and they didn’t force people to be “bussed” to some school that wasn’t specific to where they lived. So poor kids got poor schooling and vice versa.
When I was in public school (graduated HS in ’83), there always was some checklist of curriculum and standards of “passing grades” handed down from centralized authorities. Same as now. However, they didn’t try to teach us idiotic bullshit like men can give birth or that surgically mutilated men are somehow magically transformed into women.
Remember, “the three R’s”?
There was never a time that the history of the state was not whitewashed or even completely bullshitted as far back as I can remember. I think that’s part of the definition of a modern country.
But at least they taught us math in math class.
Not to mention conditioning them to live in what is effectively a prison, with AGW guards.