Keep in mind,...the horse and buggy were primarily a means to get around town quicker than walking, and transport supplies. The car is a modern conveyance to do the same thing, but is also a jump up the socio-economic ladder which was a point in my last post. Clothes and other things were discussed but these too are subject to chaning socio-economic trends in North America which makes the discussing fuzzy if we don't recognize these trends. We average folk in North America have climbed a long way up the socio-economic ladder and live far better than average folks of 100 years ago,...sometimes we should keep that in mind before comparing ourselves to other countries which have not necessarily jumped up the ladder as high.
US dollar and this fiat stuff,...
I think you have a dollar hang up. The value of the dollar over long periods of time is irrelevant because the main measurement we should look at is what we get for an hour of our work versus what we can buy. I think this ratio has increased greatly for us in North America,...wouldn't you agree.
The dollar is a short term conversion of our work to a portable store of purchasing power. We care little of its value for the long term if we quickly convert our work to dollars and then to goods and services. Even if we store our work credits in a fiat currency, the interest we receive for our fiat deposits over the last several decades has at least equaled the loss of purchasing power from inflation, or in many decades greatly bested it,...so what's the problem? This is no worse than gold, and perhaps a lot better,...another interesting fact. I consider gold as much of a fiat currency as any piece of paper with squiggles on it. Subject only to supply and demand. |
