Interesting ....many of the same/similar thoughts expressed in the 50s seem to be the same/similar ones being expressed today ...and some of them right here on sciforums. Comments made in 1955: "I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20." "Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long before $2000 will only buy a used one." "If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous." "Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?" "If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store." "When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage." "Kids today are impossible. Those ducktail haircuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls." "I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying 'damn' in 'Gone With The Wind,' it seems every new movie has either "hell" or "damn" in it. "I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas." "Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the president." "I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now." "Its too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet." "It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work." "Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more; those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat." "I'm just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business." "Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress." "The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on." "There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel." "No one can afford to be sick any more; $35 a day in the hospital is too rich for my blood." "If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it." Did you note many of the similarities? What'chu think? Baron Max
Behold...the devaluation of the currency! Been decades since the US dropped out of the gold standard...making it easy for governments to spend more than they have.
Hmm, you haven't heard about the massive debt for World War II and the Korean War? I think that was "debt", too. Or have you learned that "debt" is something different than what I learned? Baron Max
"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation." - Alan Greenspan
Currencies can inflate on the gold standard. Gold is just a commodity. It isn't magic. It doesn't keep the government from overspending and going into debt. They didn't know how good they had it, did they ? How long before we recover that level of prospertiy - ever?
But the supply of gold is more or less constant, whereas one of the main purposes of civilization is to increase surplus wealth. Couple that with the population increase that isn't projected to level off until it reaches nine billion, which means an increase in non-surplus wealth as well. We're going to have this tremendous increase in the quantity of goods and services produced, but a fixed money supply. That means deflation, which is no picinic either. Wages will fall for the young, while we old folks get rich just by sitting around and watching the value of our savings increase. Won't interest rates drop and the futures markets collapse?
I admit, Max, my first thought was to one-up you by pulling quotes from about 1918 and 2000 regarding prison labor, but I don't think that would be a fair parallel to your topic. It is an interesting reflection, but I can't say either your topic post or subsequent communique helped me understand the perspective on this one. Rather than presuming, I thought I'd inquire if there was a general thesis you wanted to put forward. As to the question of what we think, it just reminds me that not much changes. And I'm not citing Bon Jovi on this one.
Wages fall in deflation, but so do prices. I recall reading that the British government actually forced a deflationary period in the early part of the last century when they returned to a gold standard for several years. In the late Roman empire when the government started running low on international plunder they actually started debasing the coinage. Instead of minting silver denarii they would strike coins from some form of bronze or tin and then give them a wash of silver plateing. Unlike governments today, they had no way of printing money that didnt actually exist.
