Originally Posted by
Bossobass
Few, if any today, have a bow saw, hand drill, block planes, shovels, rakes, hedge shears, edging shears, manual sweeps, glazier's putty, ice boxes, blocks of ice, washer/wringers, scrub boards, slate roofing, solid wood entry doors and interior doors, hand beveled leaded glass side lites and transoms, etc., etc. And the clothes of yesteryear were hand sewn worsted wool and not Chinese synth-rags and shoes, belts, etc., were real, hand-tooled leather, not petro-chem throw-aways.
Housing was framed with lumber sizes of actual 2" by actual 4", 6", 8", 10" and 12", sheathed with 3/4" thick solid wood and veneered with brick or stone or 3/4" solid heartwood on the outside and 3/4" plaster on the inside over solid wood lath. The state of the art in housing structure today is pathetic by comparison with masonite or plastic siding, 1-1/2" by 3-1/2", 5-1/2", 7-1/4", 9-1/4" and 11-1/4" framing lumber with 1/2 sheetrock and 25 year asphalt shingles over 7/16" chipboard sheathing, hollow core masonite interior doors, etc., etc., etc.
More importantly, the folks of 1913 had NO DEBT with which to fund all of the modern "tools" and clothing you mention.
You're talking about what was our money <1914 and which is a commodity today. There was no free market for the length of an inch, a foot, a yard or a mile either.
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There are no reliable data for income <1914 because no one had to report his income and, as Weston White pointed out, there was no income tax. All such pre-1914 data is conjecture. You might as well just make the numbers up to suit your POV, as everyone else does in these discussions. As well, there were about three thousand less taxes back then which we pay from our earnings today for everything from a dog's license and shots to taxes on permission to build a shed on our properties.
Anyone who argues the $ has not been devalued over the past 100 years is a moron. Like Bernanke telling RP that the FED only keeps thousands of tons of gold in it's vaults "for tradition". [Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha]
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