When inflation doesn't explain the whole story...
From
Lenona@21:1/5 to
All on Wed Mar 26 19:27:30 2025
For a truly sad example, see the chapter about the county fair in
"Charlotte's Web," from 1952. The father gives money to his two kids for
food and rides and tells them to make it last all day and not eat so
much it makes them sick.
So how much did he give them?
70 cents each.
I knew, even without checking any inflation calculators, that that is
nowhere near adequate, today. Even if you're NOT at a fair (and I would
guess that food and rides are cheaper at a county fair than at any huge, famous, permanent amusement park) that is clearly barely enough for a
sandwich and an ice cream cone. Hardly enough to make you sick.
Even if we assume that E.B. White wrote that chapter in 1951, in 2025,
seventy cents are equal to...$8.59.
My guess is that today, he'd have to give them at least $50 each, for
the father's
speech to make any sense.
Anyway, here's ANOTHER sad example...
"Charlie and Chocolate Factory" was written in 1964. However, starting
in 1973, I think, the money that Charlie finds in the snow is a fifty
pence piece. (That coin didn't exist until 1969, but if the change in
the book was made in 1973, that would have been two years after
decimalisation in Britain.) So, that's a simple half a pound -
thankfully. That's 5.34 pounds if you calculate using 1973 and 2025.
BUT...that's less than 54 pence for each chocolate bar. I don't know how
likely that is to happen in Britain today, but I do know that that comes
to 69 American cents. No individual chocolate bar gets sold at THAT
price. (You're somewhat lucky if you can find a huge bar of chocolate
for under 40 cents per OUNCE! The only place I know of where you CAN do
that is...Trader Joe's. That's about $6.35 a pound - or just under $14
per kilo. Whereas at "dollar stores," the price is over 80 cents per
ounce, these days!)
Just saying...
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)