1. #1
    DwightShrute
    I don't believe you ... please continue
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    1919



    The year is 1919 "One hundred years ago."
    What a difference a century makes!
    Here are some statistics for the Year 1919:

    The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.
    Fuel for cars was sold in drug stores only.
    Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
    Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
    The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
    The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower .
    The average US wage in 1919 was 22 cents per hour.
    The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
    A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year.
    A dentist earned $2,500 per year.
    A veterinarian between $1,500 and 4,000 per year.
    And, a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
    More than 95 percent of all births took place at home.
    Ninety percent of all Doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as “substandard."
    Sugar cost four cents a pound.
    Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
    Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
    Most women only washed their hair once a month, And, used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

    Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
    The Five leading causes of death were:
    1. Pneumonia and influenza
    2. Tuberculosis
    3. Diarrhea
    4 Heart disease
    5. Stroke

    The American flag had 45 stars ...
    The population of Las Vegas , Nevada was only 30.
    Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.
    There was neither a Mother's Day nor a Father's Day.
    Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write And, only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
    Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at local corner drugstores.
    Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach, bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health!" (Shocking?)
    Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help...
    There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.
    I am now going to forward this to someone else without typing it myself.
    From there, it will be sent to others all over the WORLD all in a matter of seconds!
    It is impossible to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.
    We've come a long way....OR have we?

  2. #2
    Chi_archie
    GASPING FOR AIR
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    yeah but things got way different in 1920

    ROAR!!!!!!!!


    can you imagine what 2119 will look given the technological backs the future developers, inventors, scientists have to stand on.

    plus just the huge increase of mass gene pool population for more geniuses and innovators to be developed from.

  3. #3
    Eddy Munny
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    If the average U.S. worker only made 22 cents an hour, then a dozen eggs selling for 14 cents is outrageous. Eggs must've been an upper class delicacy. You better double check that, Shrute. That don't add up.

  4. #4
    MinnesotaFats
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eddy Munny View Post
    If the average U.S. worker only made 22 cents an hour, then a dozen eggs selling for 14 cents is outrageous. Eggs must've been an upper class delicacy. You better double check that, Shrute. That don't add up.
    No, it's right, from the Foundation of Economics:

    "Photo: Pixabay

    Monday, April 01, 2019

    Economics*Food*Price*prices*Price System1919*20th Century*Economic HIstoryCapitalism

    Food Prices in 1919 Compared to Today

    Capitalism isn't as "irredeemable" as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would have you to believe.

    *

    by**Marian L. Tupy

    **

    Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd at the*South by Southwest*conference in Texas on March 9, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)*stated*that

    Capitalism is an ideology of capital—the most important thing is the concentration of capital and to seek and maximize profit... we’re reckoning with the consequences of putting profit above everything else in society. And what that means is people can’t afford to live.

    “Capitalism is irredeemable,” she concluded.

    The Cost of Eating, Then and Now

    The cost of living isn’t easy to calculate. A declining cost of*home appliances, for example, needs to be juxtaposed with the growing cost of*health care, etc. In the space of this short op-ed, I want to focus on an expense that is intimately tied up with the very survival of human beings—the price of food. Throughout the history of our species, people lived in a state of undernourishment. In developed countries today,*obesity*is a growing problem and food is cheaper than ever.

    In fact, basic food items in America have become almost eight times cheaper relative to unskilled labor over the last 100 years.

    This analysis of the cost of food in America over the last century begins with*Retail*prices, 1913 to December 1919: Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 270, which was published in 1921. On pages 176-183, we encounter nominal prices of 42 food items—ranging from a pound of sirloin steak to a dozen oranges—as registered in the city of Detroit in 1919. Those can be seen in the second column of the attached graphic.

    Our second step was to express those nominal prices in terms of hours of human labor. Together with Gale Pooley, associate professor of business management, Brigham Young University-Hawaii, we took the index of hourly wages of unskilled laborers (i.e., workers at the bottom of the income ladder) between 1774 and 2016 from*www.measuringworth.com*and re-indexed it to 1919. That gave us a nominal wage rate of unskilled laborers amounting to $0.25 per hour in 1919. The nominal prices of food relative to nominal wages in 1919 can be seen in column three.

    Our third step was to find the nominal prices of the same goods (including, of course, the same quantity of those goods) on*www.walmart.com, which is where most unskilled laborers shop in 2019. Those findings can be seen in column four. According to our calculations, the nominal wage rate of unskilled laborers amounts to about $12.70 per hour today. As such, the nominal prices of food relative to nominal wages in 2019 can be seen in column five.

    The Results? Spoiler: Life Is Good

    What did we find?*

    The time price (i.e. nominal price divided by nominal hourly wage) of our basket of commodities fell from 47 hours of work to ten (see the Totals line in column five).The unweighted average time price fell by 79 percent (see the Totals line in column six).Put differently, for the same amount of work that allowed an unskilled laborer to purchase one basket of the 42 commodities in 1919, he or she could buy 7.6 baskets in 2019 (see the Totals line in column seven).The compounded rate of “affordability” of our basket of commodities rose at 2.05 percent per year (see the Totals line in column eight).Put differently, an unskilled laborer saw his or her purchasing power double every 34 years (see the Totals line in column nine).

    Pay particular attention to column six and note that declining prices result in exponential, not linear, gains. Thus, a 75 percent decline in price allows a person to purchase four items; a 90 percent decline results in ten items; a 95 percent decline in 20 items; and a 96 percent decline in 25 items. A one percentage point change from 95 percent to 96 percent, in other words, enhances the gain by 25 percent.

    Thus eggs, which declined by 96 percent in terms of time price between 1919 and 2019, allow the unskilled laborer today to purchase 24 times as many eggs as an unskilled laborer was able to purchase for the same amount of work a century ago. That’s a massive improvement—even if we ignore the likelihood that an unskilled laborer today performs work that is*less physically strenuous*and*less dangerous*than it was in 1919."

    Bottom line, life is pretty good now due to CAPITALISM

  5. #5
    Sanity Check
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    Income taxes in 1919 were likely 5% or less. In the USA the income tax was 1% for the non wealthy when it was passed in 1913.

    Fast forward to 2019. Summing collective taxes the average person pays the total number likely comes out to around 50% of income.

    Huge part of society being fukked up.

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