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“From a student radical/hippie/leftist of the Free Speech Movement/Vietnam Day Commitee era and a full-on Democratic Liberal in the decades after, I think I’ve evolved a politics that is neither right nor left but is, in its elemental nature, draconian. In the last 20 years, I’ve taken apart my beliefs with a sledgehammer. Now I’ve got to put the surviving parts back together with tweezers and other ‘shabby equipment, always deteriorating’.”
From September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
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Chesterton
“Political or economic reform will not make us good and happy, but until this odd period nobody ever expected that they would.” — G.K. Chesterton, 1905 pic.twitter.com/2wOVoAhcFh
— Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) August 31, 2019
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$1 in 1939 equals about $18 today
How can we deal with the national debt, soon all the taxes we collect will be need just to pay the interest?
I know kids, lets get off the gold standard, clean up that old building over there, call it the Federal Reserve Bank and print more money!
I had a piece on my blog last year on “Fifty is the new twenty”. I kept a twenty tucked up over the visor in the car, just in case.
Then last year my girlfriend and I went down to the beach to watch the sunset and on the way back had the urge to stop for a beer each and a small shared appetizer. But my wallet was still at the house and the twenty from the car didn’t cover the tab, even with five bucks in quarters from the stash for tolls.
Now I tuck fifty up there.
Public telephone. Operator, give me PR5-1325. That’s PRimrose5-1325 for you kids. That was my Grandparent’s actual phone # and you couldn’t dial direct. Ours was SE2-5183, or SElden2-5183.
Good times….
That 79 cent wind up alarm clock would probably still be working today is someone hadn’t thrown it away for a cool new digital one that cost $15 and required 2 AA batteries and then gets thrown in the landfill a year later.
A dollar in 1912 was worth a dollar but today it is worth 3 cents.
Said another way, that which cost a dollar in 1912 costs 97 dollars today.
Where’d it all go?
On a 1950’s Perry Mason episode last night the dood told Perry he kept $5000 in his home safe and Perry asked if he always kept that large amount on hand. My wife remarked that $5000 isn’t THAT much and I reminded her that $5k in 1955 was about $50k today. In 2055 that $5k will be $200k. (it’s exponential, in case you were wondering)
When I worked at McDonalds in 1970 a Big Mac cost 45 cents and sales tax was 4%, how much are they today? You could buy 5 hamburgers, at 19 cents each, and get change back from a dollar. How do you cure a thieving gov’t?
Large Box Bath Powder $0.09
Ebay today. 3 pack bath powder. Japan $0.99
NYC subway: 1972…25cents, 2019…$2.75.
Ten times higher.
minimum wage: 1972.. $1.50, 2019…$15.00
Volkswagen: 1972..$1,300.00, 2019…$30,000??
Certainly brings back memories. Our medium sized town had a well stocked Five and Dime, complete with a lunch counter. If it wasn’t there, you could probably find it at the Woolworth’s—complete with its trademark wood floor. If anything was marked “Made in Japan”, back on the shelf it went. for that was synonymous with junk. No worries though, as so little wasn’t made in the good old USA. What a time it was—late 50’s up to the hippie era, which was the beginning of the end.
Who broke the Merry-go-round?
https://tinyurl.com/y245jx38
Dollar stores are the five-and-dimes of today.
@Richard, the noninflationary version:
https://archive.org/stream/pdfy–Pori1NL6fKm2SnY/The%20Creature%20From%20Jekyll%20Island_djvu.txt
pdf –
https://ia802609.us.archive.org/14/items/pdfy–Pori1NL6fKm2SnY/The%20Creature%20From%20Jekyll%20Island.pdf
Ooh, I haven’t read that Patricia Wentworth!
Don’t know the rest of those books.
I second (or third, or fourth, or whatever) The Creature from Jekyll Island. It is one of the most influential books I’ve read, to the point that I bought copies for each of my children as well as my brother. None of them have read it, but I’ve tried.
Regarding the inflation of our currency, I’m no economist, but the Adjusted Monetary Base is just about the scariest chart I’ve ever seen.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=nWyb
We all know that we went through a crisis in 2008. Banks were closing, and the value of your home, your 401k and other investment accounts took a hit. Since then, things have recovered….or at least we’re supposed to believe that they have. Yes, things aren’t crashing like they were 11 years ago, but look at that chart closely. The AMB is now roughly 4 times what it was in 2008. Has the value of your home or 401k quadrupled? Mine has improved, but not to that degree, and I don’t think I’m alone. If the value of your assets hasn’t kept up with the increase in the number of dollars, then you haven’t recovered. I’m just an amateur, but I think that we’re in a deflationary period that they’re (“The Fed, The Powers That Be, Whoever”) are trying to mask by increasing the number of dollars in the system dramatically.
I like to think that if you flip that chart upside down, that will tell you the value of the dollar in your pocket.
Vitamin G!
The illustration on the cover of the “Fingers of Fear” paperback looks alarmingly like the alien characters in the Roddy Piper classic Sci-Fi film, “They Live”, where humans were turned into mindless consumers by the alien’s hidden subliminal suggestions.