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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Charters who wrote (85510)	5/19/2002 11:45:23 AM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116836

Whoops. Made a mispeak. The period between 1810 and 1845 was a period of deflation, not inflation. (The period between 1900 and 1920 was in inflationary period, roughly equating to 1981 to 2001, for a 2.1 times increase in prices.) But I don't think we will be going through a roaring 20's time as a repeat. We have had our inflation, but also our stock market rise. It's behind us. Between 1810 and 1845 prices fell roughly by half. It would take ten of today's dollars to buy one 1810 dollar's value, but 23 - 2001 dollars to buy one 1845 dollar's worth of goods. So things were getting cheaper. (The dollar was worth more.) I don't know about the money supply but the debt was increasing and so was the population. In 1810 the population was 6 million some in the US. By 1890 it would be 62 million. It is tough to make comparisons between today and yesterday. For one thing, money necessary to live, live well or survive is not equatable. Disposable income did not have the same meaning. People bought different things and needed different things in general. In general there was more self sufficiency in many areas. (Fuel, food, travel) Trade may have been less dependent on money. Energy needs were less. In some ways energy was used more efficiently than it is today. Coal-steam and horse power was no less efficient then than diesel and electricity is today. (about 25%) Also taxes were almost non existent in that time. I have difficulty with some of the figures. In 1929 in NY state the per capita income was 1152 dollars. In year 2000 it was 34,547 dollars. That is a factor of 30 times. Yet the inflation index is only 10.33 times today's dollars. Were times so hard then? My father owned a car, and a lot of people owned their own houses. Of course personal income tax or many other (sales, manufacturing) taxes did not exist then. You could deduct 50% for that. But that still leavesa gap. I don't think people were that badly off compared to today. EC<:-}