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1900, a loaf of bread at the bakery, was less than a nickle. A gallon of gas was a nickle
Today, a loaf of bread at the grocery store is pushing on $3 and gas over $3 a gallon.
You could try and argue supply & demand, but the two commodities have inflated together in the last 100 years, all because of a dollar bill being cut in half and now calling each half a dollar., while it still takes all the original dollar to buy it.
The dollar has been divided so many times, it really still takes a nickel to buy both a loaf of bread and a gallon of gas.
Inflation
So?
In the meantime the median income rose from a bit over $400/year to anywhere from $44,000 to over $50,000/year (depending on which number you look at) - meaning that in 1900 a loaf of bread represented .000125% of a typical yearly income while today it represents just .00006% of a typical yearly income (ONE HALF AS MUCH) as it did in 1900 - meaning that Americans have twice the buying power they had in 1900. Same ratio holds true for that gallon of gas you mentioned.
I should also point out that you don't HAVE to pay $3 for a loaf of bread. I buy 100% whole wheat at walmart and it's only $2/loaf (which is actually about average - so you are "faking" the price of bread in you post to make it seem more expensive than it actually is) - and plain white bread - which I used to eat as a kid - is about $1/loaf.
Inflation doesn't mean jack as long as wages rise along with prices. Now it IS true that the last 30 years HAVE seen a relative loss of some of that economic gain but we're still WAYYYYY ahead of the game when you compare 1900 to today.
Wingnuts are so hung up on inflation as if it's necessarily something bad - when in fact, it's not necessarily bad at all as long as wages keep up with prices - and over the last 100 years that's generally been the case - not true in the last few decades to be sure, but (as I said) we're still way better off financially than our ancestors 100 years ago.
Ken
Last edited by LordBalfor; 04-04-2014 at 01:18 PM..
You can do the same thing in just about every country at any time in history and show that inflation exists. You can do that both before the creation of central banks or after. Your post is completely meaningless.
Yup - and inevitably the next step the wingnuts make is to call for a return to the gold standard "so that we would banish inflation" - when in fact the highest inflation in US history took place between 1917 and 1920 when we were still ON THE GOLD STANDARD - so CLEARLY being on the gold standard does nothing to prevent inflation.
Wingnuts argue this type of thing all the time, without having a clue what the real facts are - they just repeat back what some blatheing blogger says on the web somewhere.
Yup - and inevitably the next step the wingnuts make is to call for a return to the gold standard "so that we would banish inflation" - when in fact the highest inflation in US history took place between 1917 and 1920 when we were still ON THE GOLD STANDARD - so CLEARLY being on the gold standard does nothing to prevent inflation.
Wingnuts argue this type of thing all the time, without having a clue what the real facts are - they just repeat back what some blatheing blogger says on the web somewhere.
Ken
LMAO The only one blathering on here is you. Inflation is the money supply not some made up government figure whose job it is to control inflation.
The best part about your idiotic post is that period you refer to led us into a mini depression that saw unemployment hit 12 percent. So government was taken out of the process as spending and taxes dropped 40 percent over 2 years time and unemployment dropped to under 4 percent.
BTW the Fed was created in 1913. Nothing to do with the increased money supply and inflation during the time YOU quoted. How many times are you going to get it handed to you before you quit blathering nonsense.
Credit was tightened. Just like Volcker tighteneding the money supply to get us out of the bad economic times during the Carter/Reagan era.
Speaking of inflation and money supply, does Germany 1923 ring a bell? With you probably not.
But lets listen to you drone on about made up definitions like how the buyer and seller are both consumers. Coming from someone like yourself that didn't see the biggest collapse since the Great Depression coming you would be best served to sit and listen to those who have been right about the economy.
Last edited by Loveshiscountry; 04-06-2014 at 09:18 PM..
You can do the same thing in just about every country at any time in history and show that inflation exists. You can do that both before the creation of central banks or after. Your post is completely meaningless.
Yet you have provided no proof. Ever heard of facts?
I could never understand the OP's purpose of this thread, my broker has been telling me for 5 years to stay out of the market and that in the last 2-3, QE has been a big driver of stock prices. Even if he is wrong, I did not miss out, in fact I have beat the market return by buying and selling farm animals on craigslist, and that's not artificially influenced by the government.
Even IF the market took a 20% drop - so what? The market has had an incredible 100+% gain in the last 5 years so even IF it takes a 20% drop it would only bring it back to how it was in Jan of LAST YEAR. The wingnuts have been saying QE was the only the thing propelling the market for the better part of 5 YEARS NOW so the market would STILL have had a HUGE roughly 80% gain over the last 5 years.
And as an FYI - I've said for the past 6 months or so that a 15% correction could easily happen simply because it's likely time for one - but again so what? Such corrections happen every couple of years anyway even WITHOUT QE in the picture in any way shape or form. Most anything can trigger such corrections but they are not necessarily the cause of the correction. The market doesn't go straight up, it goes up for a while then down a bit then back up even higher - that's the way it's ALWAYS worked - and that's the way it's worked for the last 5 years.
Ken
Last edited by LordBalfor; 05-23-2014 at 11:39 AM..
I could never understand the OP's purpose of this thread, my broker has been telling me for 5 years to stay out of the market and that in the last 2-3, QE has been a big driver of stock prices. Even if he is wrong, I did not miss out, in fact I have beat the market return by buying and selling farm animals on craigslist, and that's not artificially influenced by the government.
The purpose of this threat was to point out the silliness of the often repeated claim on this board that somehow the only thing driving the market for the past 5 years was QE (rather than the general economic recovery that's been underway). The claim that it's simply QE driving the market was just plain dumb to begin with and the market has recovered SO MUCH at this point that EVEN IF there was a substantial correction of 20% or even 30% (which is NOT going to happen) it wouldn't really matter that much any more in regards to the overall gains over that period of time. The market has gained so much over the last 5 years that such a correction would only erase maybe a year or two of those 5 years worth of gains. In such circumstances it's pretty obvious that it was NOT simply QE driving the market.
Of course there propabaly ARE people on this board who still cling to the ignorant idea that somehow QE is going to erase all those market gains and bring the market back to the 900 or so level it was in the spring of 2009. Those people are totally clueless.
The tapering is seen as a positive for the market because it signals that the fed sees a growth in jobs. Has there really been a growth in jobs? No. There are less people working since the 1970s. That means there are less jobs. At some point the markets will realize the fed is wrong and then the market will drop.
The delay in implementing the employer mandate has also been a positive for the markets. That positive will be coming to an end at some point unless Obamacare is repealed.
Safer at the crap table then the market nowdays unless your a big bank or hedge fund manager who knows what will happen.
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