palallin posted:rthomps posted:palallin posted:rthomps posted:"Pricing out of control".
LOL! You need to review - once again since it's been mentioned numerous times - the cost of Lionel products in the '50s translated into current dollars. And, before you slip in the shower, check around on "street" pricing. You might be surprised.
You really need to take a closer look at how that translation is done. It ignores completely HOW money is spent today. Whole categories of mandatory expenses exist today which did not exist then. The distribution of the value is more telling than individual item comparisons.
You probably need to take a closer look.
It's a matter of inflation. "The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change in prices over time in a market basket of goods and services. The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases CPI data monthly."
The value of one 1954 US. Dollar is around 9.30 U.S. Dollars in 2017.
I don't understand your last sentence in any case.
The CPI is precisely the problem: it's averages. Averages don't tell you how the money is spent by people, just by the whole "market basket."
How was a month's pay spent then vs. now? Now, we spend a significant amount on mandatory expenses that didn't exist then, which meant that they could spend their money in different ways. Insurances of various kinds are one example.
Also, averages don't reflect any one case. If you have 5 people who make $100 a month and 5 people who make $0 a month, the average is $50. But you have half your population that has much more spending power than the "average" person.
This situation is exactly analogous to the very mistaken idea most people have about Average Life Expectancy. People think that, because the ALE of the Middle Ages as about 42, that people lived until 42 and died. Not true. The Average was brought down by infant mortality (and, to a lesser extent, death in child birth). If a person lived to the age of 7, he had almost as good a chance as you or I to hit 75.
Averages are misleading in the extreme if not applied correctly.
These factors significantly change the situation with regard to what money is available and how it is spent.
You need to take a closer look. Again.
It's all about inflation. Box car "A" cost $x in 1954 & $xx in 2019.
Expenditures based on personal choices have nothing to do with it.
