and it compounds. You dont see it in food, or gas prices, cause w'eve slaughtered a million people to keep those obvious price-comparisons down. But a nice V8 Ford or Chevy car was $4000 in 1970 and gas was 40c a gallon A Big Mac was 65c. Now the car is $30.000 or more. A brand new Colt 1911 was $135 in 1973, when we went off of the gold standard and gold was $130 an oz. Now the Colt is $1200 and the oz of gold is $1500. If you aint CLEARING 8x what such work cleared in 1973, you've lost ground. Any investment that doesn' CLEAR 5% every year, is not even keeping up with inflation. You're getting NOTHING by having your money tied up in it.

I agree with you kinda. I think during the great recessions we were not seeing those sorts of inflation numbers. but I was talking to my buddy and we both feel our cost of living has went up 15-20% in the last 3 years. that is not factoring in housing either for us as he and I have remained flat for that. I do think there are many things that aren't factored in the inflation numbers no doubt. I while back I saw a sporting goods ad from 1967, the interesting thing was YES all the prices were less. but in many cases I was pretty suprised at many things that weren't that much less. fishing reels for instance, they weren't that much less than now days. Other things were a lot less of course. I think manufacturing during the last 50 years has made things in many cases much cheaper and more efficient. but there are other things that have risen hugely.

So what do you do? instead of fighting inflation, do something that benefits from it. ie debt, in particular debt on real estate. The cost to build homes isn't going down, and you can leverage the inflation of the house through debt.

There were no "nice" Chevy's or Fords in 1970, not by today's standards. Today's trucks are expected to run 200 to 300K essentially without any serious repairs whatsoever. They have 9 airbags, ABS, built in GPS, and use less than 1/3rd the fuel. They need oil changes every 10 to 15K, a quarter or less of the cars of the 70's. Nobody even knows what "rolling the bearings" means anymore. Ask 10 truck owners when their U-joints were last replaced? Tires last three times as long, and cars come with a audio system that beats any non professional system anywhere in the 70', let alone the AM radio in cars of that era.

You can't even compare today's trucks with those in the 70', because today's 4 door, 4wd cowboy cadilacs with 10 speed transmissions and 350 HP did not exist then. A truck, might have a little room behind the bench seat, maybe even radial tires and a 3 speed transmission. And it got 7 MPG. 5 if it was 4wd.


That said, 50K for a half ton pickup is nutso.

Yes, I prefer zero inflation which requires a dead, stagnant economy. [/sarcasm]

Dutch: I agree with almost all of your post but for the exception of "tires" lasting three times as long today!
My VarmintMobile is cared for (babied!) to the utmost with tire rotations and inspections done RELIGIOUSLY!
My 1972 Ford F250 4X4 pickup truck was bought new by me and the Goodyear traction type (winter) tires re-balanced and "turned" to perfect roundness!
I had 70,000 miles on those tires when I sold the truck 3 years later and the tires still had impressive tread left on them!
Nowadays I barely get 60,000 miles on similar 10 ply traction tires and they are gone!
I am completely unaware of any truck tire that would get/achieve 210,000 miles on them!
Other than that real life observation/experience your posting is right on.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

5% annualized inflation is skewed by the inflation we encountered from 1970-1985. Deduct that period and it is 3% and that is about as good as you can get and have an econmy that grows at all.

Boil it all down-

We're f u c k e d

Hey ......
Could someone please inform "Zippy the OP"

Its called progress.........

Dont worry Tiny Tim's dad will be able to get him a Turkey for xmas dinner at today,s wages and price,s I think.....


gawd..... .
LOL!!!

you're fos. It does nothing of the kind. What IS required is growth and the gold standard, so that govt can;t borrow or inflate. They have to get tax legislation passed, and they can't do it. The trucks youre talking about are 60k, not 30k today and the trunck you're comparition it to cost 3k in 1970. You're a damned fool to think otherwise. Inflation is how the govt hides what they are doing to you.

so wtf makes you "think" that we just get to skip the periods you dont like, ,hmm? inflation was 18% during the early 80's. You have to average that in to get the true picture of what's been going on. Nam ruined us.

I agree that inflation is higher than reported, significantly. But I need your numbers explained, 1933 to now, at 5% is 430%. Is that possible? If you deduct 5% a year, seems in 20 years, you would be at zero. You are a negative guy.

Inflation was not 18% in the 80's
It was about 14% in the late 70's before Reagan took office.

The power and value of the US dollar is because of the US military (and Im glad). If there was a Gold Standard, someone like Gates would own it all, or the cost of an oz. would be so high nobody would have any.
Please take some basic Economics courses.

You need to get your facts straight....

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-takes-united-states-off-gold-standard

You've never heard of leverage? A concern of any size cannot succeed without the (hopefully wise) use of leverage. Not to mention as a tool of monetary policy to stabilize an economy. Even Obama figured that out.

At it's hightest point, annual change over the same month in the previous year reached 14.73% in April of 1980.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPALTT01USM659N

The Gold standard does not prevent inflation. During the 1500's the Spanish experienced 500% inflation as the treasure ships returned from the new world.

Additionally, in most hard asset economies, the assets doesn't actually trade hand, but certificates redeemable in the underlying assets. The practice of issuing more certificated than hard reserves goes back to the 15th century.

I stand corrected, had semi tires on the brain....

Yes, genius the war in Vietnam coupled with LBJ's Great Society was the root of the inflation of that period and it has absolutely nothing to do with going off the gold standard. In the 30+ years since that period inflations has run right at 3% annually and in the 30 years before that it was the same. Your hypothesis that going off the gold standard caused inflation to run 5% annually is erroneous. Your logic flawed but you want to contentiously argue the point with anyone within shouting distance becuase this is one of your hot buttons. You prove my point by acknowledging that inflation ran upwards to 18% in that period. You make my case for me. What rock did you suddenly crawl out from under?

Hatari,

He didn't crawl out from under a rock. It was a bridge, a troll bridge.

Holy Schitt! This jackass has 175 in 2 days!

Most all of them are condescending and confrontational.

This troll goes straight to ignore.

I smell a Soros paid troll here sent to be the "holier than thou" troll. you know, more conservative and smarter than the room.

Or maybe this is our friend Tn_chooter back for another round.

When he began talking Bout how many DC staff members would get taken out with beretta .22lr and home made silencers I dad to start wondering how before we saw those posts on MSNBC an attributed to the 2md amendment comminity.

Complete and utter BS. The Fed usually has a target inflation rate of 2%. Most currency manipulation is to keep the rate between 1.5%-2.5%. The highest it's been since 2000 is 2.69 (2004) and the lowest was .05 during 2007. The price of gasoline has very little to do with inflation in any way and is never included in the "basket of goods" calculations used by economists.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10YIE

And you didn't even factor in emissions. That mandate added $10,000 to a class 8 truck.