Thread: When America was great!

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

What can you get for a buck today?

0.94 Australian cents. Forget the Euro, more value for your dollar with me.


Mick

Originally Posted by MickR

0.94 Australian cents. Forget the Euro, more value for your dollar with me.


Mick

To hell with that tabby in the hat, I going with the terrier, besides everyone knows that dogs are better people.

Offtopic like usual, but i think that cars made in the USA pre 1975 were great. Those made after that are ,eh, not so great.

What was the prevailing wage back then compared today?

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

When America was great: Gas was at 20 cents, a pack of smokes cost 30 cents, sales tax was 3 cents, it cost 3 cents to mail a letter anywhere, my folks would give me a dollar on Saturday nite, my buddies and I would walk into town to see the lastest movie, I would hand my dollar over to the ticket taker and she would give me 50 cents in change, we would walk inside to the snack counter and i would order a coke @ 15 cents and a box of popcorn for a quarter, I would hand them my remaining 50 cents and get a dime in return. Two cartoons, one before the main attraction and another after the final credits, on the way home I would hit up the vending machine at the gas station for another Coke and there went my last dime. A dollar well spent back in the day.

What can you get for a buck today?

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

What was the prevailing wage back then compared today?

Around $3k/year - enough to purchase about 33 gallons per day. Gasoline is so expensive now the average wage earner can only purchase about 28 gallons per day. Movie theaters are following the trend too, only allowing the same earner about 14 shows a day, which is now barely enough to cover the 24 hours he can be awake (if he skips previews)

Unless he can pass his dollars off as euros. Then his options improve considerably

The good old days of 0.30 cent cigarettes and .020 cent a gallon gas are long gone. The USA we knew is long gone. The younger generation has no idea what our world was like then just as we have little idea of the world our grandfathers lived in. In a lot of ways day today life is better. Certainly in terms of creature comforts.

We can call the USA the greatest nation if we choose to but what is the yardstick with which you're measuring ? An honest look at where we are is troubling. Life expectancy numbers show us to be 36th among other nations. Our lead in education, particularly in science and engineering, is long gone. The Chinese, among other countries, are eating our lunch. Nationalism is fine if it has a basis in fact beyond wishful thinking and false pride.

Spending more than the rest of the world combined so we can be militarily dominant may be desirable to some. Personally I'd rather see the $ go to medical care for our citizens. We wouldn't want to do that though, might make us look like socialists. Meanwhile we support and owe trillions to a communist dictatorship that murders it's citizens and tolerates slave labor. Our government is more concerned with taking care of it's corporations than it's citizens. What was it Calvin Coolidge said ? "The business of the United States is business." Still true.

Meanwhile Wallmart demands their suppliers offshore their manufacturing to cut cost to the bone and "we" go there feeling like we're getting a bargain, when it is our manufacturing jobs that we've given up for the 'thirty pieces of silver.' This country was 'great' before it became a 'consumer based economy.' So now with our crumbling infrastructure, grid locked government and failing economy we can do what Bush 2 suggested .... go shopping. End of rant.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

{snip of lots of wisdom}

You're smarter than I look, Jimmy.