3 ms·

F. Scott Fitzgerald and living on $500,000 a year

36 points by splat 17y ago

10ren 17y ago
24,000 in 1920 dollars = $ 253,532.93 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1920+dollars+%3D+ http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1920+dollar... 24,000 in 1940 dollars = $ 362,138.28 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1940+dollars+%3D+ http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1940+dollar... (yes, deflation. the dollar was worth more in 1940 than in 1920 - see the graph in the first link)
- dcurtis 17y ago
  I find it fascinating that Wolfram Alpha provides absolutely no references for any of its information. The author of the article makes comparisons of the costs of tangible goods to arrive at the 500k number.
  - dreish 17y ago
    And bizarre comparisons at that, since the luxury car market can hardly be expected to be consistent in any meaningful way from 1920 to 2009.
    - eru 17y ago
      Technologically, not. Remember that a luxury car is more like a status symbol.
      - dreish 17y ago
        Yes, and since 1920 there have been changes in pretty much all the inputs to the luxury car price function, wealth distribution, production costs of pretty much everything, and what the Joneses that you're trying to keep ahead of can be expected to have being the ones that immediately come to mind.
- joshfinnie 17y ago
  the article even stated that the way to find the present value of money is flawed for the first years it was available to WWI. Therefore, anything from 1919 to 1940 is probably wrong. I would assume Wolfram Alpha is using the incorrect process to calculate the above figures.
wallflower 17y ago
Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" (Going broke on a million a year), p.137 "One breath of scandal, and not only would the Giscard scheme collapse but his very career would be finished! And what would he do then? I’m already going broke on a million a year! The appalling figures came popping up into his brain. Last year his income had been $980,000. But he had to pay out $21,000 a month for the $1.8 million loan he had to take out to buy the apartment... Of the $560,000 remaining of his income last year, $44,400 was required for the apartment’s monthly maintenance fee… $18,000 for heat, utilities, insurance and repairs, $6,000 for lawn and hedge cutting, $8,000 for taxes. Entertaining at home and in restaurants had come to $37,000. This was a modest sum compared to what other people spent."
percept 17y ago
Snippets: "To him saving meant freedom to work on his novels without interruptions caused by the economic necessity of writing short stories. The short stories were his main source of revenue." "Fitzgerald’s income was almost tax free (5.5 percent effective rate), while today’s taxpayer making $500,000 would probably pay 40 percent in income and Social Security taxes." "As he put it, “So the only lesson I learned from it was that my money usually turns up somewhere in time of need, and that at the worst you can always borrow—a lesson that would make Benjamin Franklin turn over in his grave.”" "Fitzgerald did not agree with Chicago School market theory, which is to say, he did not believe that more sellers means more competition, which means lower prices. Fitzgerald thought that if you had more sellers they simply raised prices to whatever they needed to survive. He wrote that Great Neck “became the most expensive [town] in the world” because the gold rush had lured “too many food purveyors for the population.”" "The wolf was at the door. For the next five weeks he went to a large bare room over the garage and worked 12 hours a day “to rise from abject poverty back into the middle class.”" "He wrote to Edmund Wilson, “I really worked hard as hell last winter—but it was all trash and it nearly broke my heart as well as my iron constitution.” He wrote that he was “far from satisfied with the whole affair.” A young man “can work at excessive speed with no ill effect but youth is unfortunately not a permanent condition of life.”" "During the 1920s and 1930s, the tax system relied almost entirely on the honesty of taxpayers. Fitzgerald reported every dollar he had entered in his ledger. He was impeccably honest in his reporting." "a friend wrote from France to suggest that Fitzgerald join the many Americans living well in Europe on the strong American dollar. The friend wrote that it cost one-tenth as much to live in Europe: he had just finished “a meal fit for a king, washed down with champagne, for the absurd sum of sixty-one cents.”"
far33d 17y ago
A young man “can work at excessive speed with no ill effect but youth is unfortunately not a permanent condition of life.”. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

36 points by splat 17y ago

10ren 17y ago

24,000 in 1920 dollars = $ 253,532.93 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1920+dollars+%3D+ http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1920+dollar... 24,000 in 1940 dollars = $ 362,138.28 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1940+dollars+%3D+ http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1940+dollar... (yes, deflation. the dollar was worth more in 1940 than in 1920 - see the graph in the first link)

dcurtis 17y ago
I find it fascinating that Wolfram Alpha provides absolutely no references for any of its information. The author of the article makes comparisons of the costs of tangible goods to arrive at the 500k number.
- dreish 17y ago
  And bizarre comparisons at that, since the luxury car market can hardly be expected to be consistent in any meaningful way from 1920 to 2009.
  - eru 17y ago
    Technologically, not. Remember that a luxury car is more like a status symbol.
    - dreish 17y ago
      Yes, and since 1920 there have been changes in pretty much all the inputs to the luxury car price function, wealth distribution, production costs of pretty much everything, and what the Joneses that you're trying to keep ahead of can be expected to have being the ones that immediately come to mind.
joshfinnie 17y ago
the article even stated that the way to find the present value of money is flawed for the first years it was available to WWI. Therefore, anything from 1919 to 1940 is probably wrong. I would assume Wolfram Alpha is using the incorrect process to calculate the above figures.

wallflower 17y ago

Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" (Going broke on a million a year), p.137 "One breath of scandal, and not only would the Giscard scheme collapse but his very career would be finished! And what would he do then? I’m already going broke on a million a year! The appalling figures came popping up into his brain. Last year his income had been $980,000. But he had to pay out $21,000 a month for the $1.8 million loan he had to take out to buy the apartment... Of the $560,000 remaining of his income last year, $44,400 was required for the apartment’s monthly maintenance fee… $18,000 for heat, utilities, insurance and repairs, $6,000 for lawn and hedge cutting, $8,000 for taxes. Entertaining at home and in restaurants had come to $37,000. This was a modest sum compared to what other people spent."

percept 17y ago

Snippets: "To him saving meant freedom to work on his novels without interruptions caused by the economic necessity of writing short stories. The short stories were his main source of revenue." "Fitzgerald’s income was almost tax free (5.5 percent effective rate), while today’s taxpayer making $500,000 would probably pay 40 percent in income and Social Security taxes." "As he put it, “So the only lesson I learned from it was that my money usually turns up somewhere in time of need, and that at the worst you can always borrow—a lesson that would make Benjamin Franklin turn over in his grave.”" "Fitzgerald did not agree with Chicago School market theory, which is to say, he did not believe that more sellers means more competition, which means lower prices. Fitzgerald thought that if you had more sellers they simply raised prices to whatever they needed to survive. He wrote that Great Neck “became the most expensive [town] in the world” because the gold rush had lured “too many food purveyors for the population.”" "The wolf was at the door. For the next five weeks he went to a large bare room over the garage and worked 12 hours a day “to rise from abject poverty back into the middle class.”" "He wrote to Edmund Wilson, “I really worked hard as hell last winter—but it was all trash and it nearly broke my heart as well as my iron constitution.” He wrote that he was “far from satisfied with the whole affair.” A young man “can work at excessive speed with no ill effect but youth is unfortunately not a permanent condition of life.”" "During the 1920s and 1930s, the tax system relied almost entirely on the honesty of taxpayers. Fitzgerald reported every dollar he had entered in his ledger. He was impeccably honest in his reporting." "a friend wrote from France to suggest that Fitzgerald join the many Americans living well in Europe on the strong American dollar. The friend wrote that it cost one-tenth as much to live in Europe: he had just finished “a meal fit for a king, washed down with champagne, for the absurd sum of sixty-one cents.”"

far33d 17y ago

A young man “can work at excessive speed with no ill effect but youth is unfortunately not a permanent condition of life.”. - F. Scott Fitzgerald