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How much did a 55” LCD TV cost in 1973? Cuz they’re $249 now.
by NoblePublius 8y ago
How much did a 55” LCD TV cost in 1973? Cuz they’re $249 now.
- thfuran 8y agoGreat. Now let's do college.
- NoblePublius 8y agoThank you for proving my point that life is very different today than it was in 1973, and that comparing wages across decades is dumb
- asark 8y agoYou're gonna need to connect the dots for us here re: why that necessarily makes the comparison dumb.
- ska 8y ago“Proving” You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- cptskippy 8y agoWhat is your point? That because TV production has largely become automated and those reduced labor costs have brought prices down significantly, that the cost of living has also magically come down?
- LookOutItsABot 8y agoAre you real; standardized responses or just lazy copy paste?
- imtringued 8y agoYeah but the comments you are replying to don't talk about wages. They only offer counterpoints that disprove your original assertion: prices didn't go down in every sector.
- Fifth_Star 8y agoCan you live in a TV and eat it? Cause the average rent was $175 dollars a month http://www.littlehouseinthevalley.com/cost-of-living-comparisons http://www.littlehouseinthevalley.com/cost-of-living-compari...
- NoblePublius 8y agoThank you for proving my point that life is very different today than it was in 1973, and that comparing wages across decades is dumb.
- Four_Star 8y agoIt's inflation adjusted wages. As in adjusted for changes in average costs of living. Most people don't spend all their money on TVs. they spend it on food, housing, transportation, clothing and other things that existed in 1973. Furthermore, they adjust the inflation figure to account for changes in the technological utility of things
- mikeash 8y agoLife is not fundamentally different. Little details are different, but people still buy houses or pay rent, buy cars, buy food, pay for education, pay for entertainment, etc.
- Retra 8y agoEverything can be "very different" when you ignore all the things that are the same.
- j4kp07 8y agoSo, when factoring in inflation, the "average rent" of $175 in 1973 still seems...average. What's your point?
- refurb 8y agoAn average car cost $4,000. So about 1/10th. Applying that to rent, the rent would be $1750, which is pretty close.
- michaelbuckbee 8y agoThere's a great graphic that shows what goods/services are more and less expensive now vs 1998. https://cdn.howmuch.net/articles/price-changes-in-usa-in-past-20-years-947e.jpg https://cdn.howmuch.net/articles/price-changes-in-usa-in-pas... TVs are definitely more affordable, but Hospital Services and College is really not. Somewhat surprisingly it looks like Housing is more affordable (rising, but less than average earnings). I think these longitudinal studies of the wage/cost relationships are really valuable as they provide a lot of insight into what people feel about the economy and where things are going.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoIncome, potential to increase income, and income security is so location dependent, that I don't think one can easily compare housing costs throughout the years. The places that are expected to grow in the future have rapidly increasing housing costs, whereas the places that are expected to decline have shrinking housing costs.
- nickjj 8y agoI'd like to see that same graph but going back to 1980. Back in the early 80s you could buy a house in an expensive state (NY) for about 50-60k but today a similar house goes for around 400k. But a lot of people in the 80s and early 90s made equal or more money than they do today, like a legit dollar for dollar amount more. Certain industries paid 35k-40k a year back then but pay 30-35k today, which is a massive difference considering how much more things are today than back in the 80s.
- carnagii 8y agoYeah, they take that into account when calculating inflation, which is why CPI is quoted at 1% when the cost of housing, food, gas, health care, college tuition (i.e. everything you actually need) is more like 10%.
- basetop 8y agoUsing that logic, a homeless person with a casio watch is better off than Charlemagne. We should be comparing now with now. And most importantly, we should be comparing wealth inequality because wealth translates directly to power and wealth inequality means power inequality. Nobody is competing against anyone from 1973 or 1873. We are competing against people today. And the accumulation of wealth and power by a small group of elites should concern everyone regardless of the price of insignificant trinkets.
- NoblePublius 8y agoThe homeless person is better off than Charlemagne
- saagarjha 8y agoConsidering that the homeless person likely does not have food security or a place to live, which I would consider to be significantly more important than being able to tell the time, I would have to disagree with your claim that the homeless person is “better off”.
- NoblePublius 8y agoHe’s homeless because he’s probably a drug addict or mentally ill, in which case he wouldn’t have lasted very long as Charlemagne
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoPlenty of folks in power are drug addicts or mentally ill. The bigger difference between the well-to-do and the homeless person is that the person with money can get drug addiction treatment from a nice place instead of going to forced AA or NA classes the shelter offers. (forced if they want shelter at times). They can also afford proper medications and caretakers. I'd also like to note that there are lots of folks that are homeless simply because they cannot afford housing. I've not had that fate, but I did live some time without proper heat nor hot water because I couldn't afford the natural gas deposit. Lots of other folks are living with friends or relatives.
- eli_gottlieb 8y agoPeople need multiple things. A big-screen TV is of no help to someone dying of measles.
- SilasX 8y agoOkay, I don't think you should be downvoted to oblivion, but this is a hard point to get right. Yes, we should account for technological improvements in the quality of our lives. In fact, it's the only way to have long-term improvement in real, appropriately measured consumption. And yes, there are creature comforts you can buy today that were darn near impossible back then. But ... you need to weight these improvements by relative impact. Yes, TVs are better. But how much utility they can really add to your life is limited. They're little comfort when the important things -- like not being bankrupted by health care costs -- eat up all the rest. If you buy too much into the importance of better TVs, you end up like Fed banker William Dudley, and insist that living costs went down, even as every bill went up, because iPads are faster. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-dudley-ipad-idUSTRE72A4AC20110311 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-dudley-ipad-idUST...
- NoblePublius 8y agoThe $249 TV brought a billion Asians and Latinos out of extreme poverty. If you can afford the TV, you are the 1%.
- SilasX 8y agoNo, nobody left poverty because the price of a bigscreen TV fell below $250. Edit: nor were the jobs provided by that factory a proximate cause.