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Is 100yrs that hard? I recently watched "The Little Giant" (1933) where the main character claims to have over a million dollars and is kind of retiring. I foun

Is 100yrs that hard? I recently watched "The Little Giant" (1933) where the main character claims to have over a million dollars and is kind of retiring. I found it fun to look up what that million dollars would be worth today. According to one site it is $18 million. He went to a hotel in Santa Barbara where he was paying $45 a night for a giant suite. That comes out to over $800 a night which sounds like it might be in the correct ballpark. He gave is girlfriend who he was breaking up with a check for $25k which came out to about $500k in todays terms it seems. He rented a 20 bedroom 12 bathroom mansion for $1450 a month which is apparently $25k today. Sounds reasonable for a 20 bedroom mansion? Those all seem like reasonable numbers. PS: not recommending the movie. It was cute but not great.

cheez 7y ago
Well... That's less than 100 years ago so....
- malux85 7y ago
  This isn’t some threshold below which results are meaningless, it’s a time period approximation. Given the lack of computerised record keeping at the time compared to now, it’s more important to have a reliable metric from the period than hit the 100y mark exactly
akiselev 7y ago
That's measuring the monetary value while ignoring actual utility. No amount of money could have bought a polio vaccine or advanced cancer treatments or genetic testing or microelectronics in 1933 but these are common things across the world now. Purchasing power doesn't just grow in quantity, it grows in technological sophistication that make any comparison between now and even the early 20th century more than useless - they're actively misleading. The biggest growth is in industrial production and distribution of goods and it isn't really quantifiable.
erulabs 7y ago
It has footage of Santa Barbara from the 30s? I'd love to check it out - was born and raised there and worked at the Hotel Santa Barbara briefly which is the only hotel old enough to fit this bill!
onetimemanytime 7y ago
$1 million then is not $18 Million today in purchasing power IMO. Maybe it is in inflation. Probably relative to GDP /stock market is a better way to measure it
winter_blue 7y ago
$1 mil in 1993 is not worth $18 mil today (ie. in 2020). Inflation has averaged 2% during this time, so over 27 years: (1.02)^27 = 1.7069 $1 mil from 1993 would be worth no more than ~$1.71 today.
- unnouinceput 7y ago
  He said 1933, not 1993
- piaste 7y ago
  1933, not 1993.
lmm 7y ago
How do you meaningfully compare a hotel or mansion in 1933 to one today though? The reasons you'd travel would be very different, and so would the experience of the hotel. Those 20 bedrooms would presumably have blankets rather than duvets; the variety of food you get in a budget hotel today would have been virtually unimaginable then. The very concept of a girlfriend back then is hard to compare to what a girlfriend means now. Etc.
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  The food is a good example - you could buy handmade quilts at a surprisingly cheap rate, but you could not buy fresh Lychee from Asia at any price. You could buy an encyclopedia, but couldn't buy a single Google search. A Roman emperor could wear a handcrafted sword of the finest exotic steel, but could not get a single AK-47 in his army.
varjag 7y ago
$800 is more in the good 5 star room than opulent suite territory tho, given the location
IanCal 7y ago
I think the answer to this is basically that the further you go back, the harder the comparisons become - or at least you have to think much harder about why you're comparing things. Over a few years, it's pretty easy to talk about the amount of money to maintain a certain standard of living. Some things cost more, some less and it averages out to a comparative number. How do I compare my outgoings on a mobile phone to the 1980s/60s/40s? Should I? How do I compare international travel to a time before commercial flight? Before powered flight at all? Should I compare year round access to exotic fruits - something that would require royal wealth if even possible depending on how far back you want to go. It doesn't mean we can't do it though, just that the comparisons come with more and more caveats and more ways of working it out make sense in different contexts. One I think is quite interesting is "how many human hours can I direct with this sum?" or even "what portion of human output can I control?". It doesn't tell you what your salary would be in the 1200s but I think it's an interesting framing for looking at how the world has changed.
- ghaff 7y ago
  >I think the answer to this is basically that the further you go back, the harder the comparisons become That's clearly true although I suspect it's rather non-linear depending upon the metric you're trying to compare. Healthcare is certainly one big thing that money can only buy to some degree over time. Go back to the early twentieth century and a very wealthy person can largely be as comfortable as today. The fact that they don't have kitchen appliances, TV, and so forth doesn't really matter a lot. But they can't get polio vaccine or many medical treatments that are pretty routine today.
nitwit005 7y ago
The whole nature of what property and ownership means tends to shift with large enough time frames. It wasn't that long ago that in many places it was difficult to be wealthy without being a noble. A mansion tended to come with tenant farmers and feudal obligations.

cheez 7y ago

Well... That's less than 100 years ago so....

malux85 7y ago
This isn’t some threshold below which results are meaningless, it’s a time period approximation. Given the lack of computerised record keeping at the time compared to now, it’s more important to have a reliable metric from the period than hit the 100y mark exactly

akiselev 7y ago

That's measuring the monetary value while ignoring actual utility. No amount of money could have bought a polio vaccine or advanced cancer treatments or genetic testing or microelectronics in 1933 but these are common things across the world now. Purchasing power doesn't just grow in quantity, it grows in technological sophistication that make any comparison between now and even the early 20th century more than useless - they're actively misleading. The biggest growth is in industrial production and distribution of goods and it isn't really quantifiable.

erulabs 7y ago

It has footage of Santa Barbara from the 30s? I'd love to check it out - was born and raised there and worked at the Hotel Santa Barbara briefly which is the only hotel old enough to fit this bill!

onetimemanytime 7y ago

$1 million then is not $18 Million today in purchasing power IMO. Maybe it is in inflation. Probably relative to GDP /stock market is a better way to measure it

winter_blue 7y ago

$1 mil in 1993 is not worth $18 mil today (ie. in 2020). Inflation has averaged 2% during this time, so over 27 years: (1.02)^27 = 1.7069 $1 mil from 1993 would be worth no more than ~$1.71 today.

unnouinceput 7y ago
He said 1933, not 1993
piaste 7y ago
1933, not 1993.

lmm 7y ago

How do you meaningfully compare a hotel or mansion in 1933 to one today though? The reasons you'd travel would be very different, and so would the experience of the hotel. Those 20 bedrooms would presumably have blankets rather than duvets; the variety of food you get in a budget hotel today would have been virtually unimaginable then. The very concept of a girlfriend back then is hard to compare to what a girlfriend means now. Etc.

LeifCarrotson 7y ago
The food is a good example - you could buy handmade quilts at a surprisingly cheap rate, but you could not buy fresh Lychee from Asia at any price. You could buy an encyclopedia, but couldn't buy a single Google search. A Roman emperor could wear a handcrafted sword of the finest exotic steel, but could not get a single AK-47 in his army.

varjag 7y ago

$800 is more in the good 5 star room than opulent suite territory tho, given the location

IanCal 7y ago

I think the answer to this is basically that the further you go back, the harder the comparisons become - or at least you have to think much harder about why you're comparing things. Over a few years, it's pretty easy to talk about the amount of money to maintain a certain standard of living. Some things cost more, some less and it averages out to a comparative number. How do I compare my outgoings on a mobile phone to the 1980s/60s/40s? Should I? How do I compare international travel to a time before commercial flight? Before powered flight at all? Should I compare year round access to exotic fruits - something that would require royal wealth if even possible depending on how far back you want to go. It doesn't mean we can't do it though, just that the comparisons come with more and more caveats and more ways of working it out make sense in different contexts. One I think is quite interesting is "how many human hours can I direct with this sum?" or even "what portion of human output can I control?". It doesn't tell you what your salary would be in the 1200s but I think it's an interesting framing for looking at how the world has changed.

ghaff 7y ago
>I think the answer to this is basically that the further you go back, the harder the comparisons become That's clearly true although I suspect it's rather non-linear depending upon the metric you're trying to compare. Healthcare is certainly one big thing that money can only buy to some degree over time. Go back to the early twentieth century and a very wealthy person can largely be as comfortable as today. The fact that they don't have kitchen appliances, TV, and so forth doesn't really matter a lot. But they can't get polio vaccine or many medical treatments that are pretty routine today.

nitwit005 7y ago

The whole nature of what property and ownership means tends to shift with large enough time frames. It wasn't that long ago that in many places it was difficult to be wealthy without being a noble. A mansion tended to come with tenant farmers and feudal obligations.