Thread: Joel's reviews / Puma Gold ???

Originally Posted by SteveS

Both median salary figures you cite are in 2005 dollars, so salaries have more than kept up with inflation.

Obviously. In adjusted dollars, the average wage has increased roughly $11.4K since 1967.

I think what I meant to say was not salary keeping up with inflation, but the inflated prices of razors. If you go to the inflation calculator and enter the average salary of 1967 ($28600) for the value, enter the initial year as 1967 and the final year as 2005, you will get a final value of $166K, i.e., if you were making $28.6k in 1967, you were doing pretty well. (this is erronious information and is irrelevant for this discussion though)

Of note, below this it says that in 2005 dollars, $28.6K was the equivalent to ~$5k in 1967 dollars. So if the census bureau was reporting salary in 2005 adjusted dollars, that means your paycheck would be like $100 for a 40 hour work week back in 1967. At roughly $2.50 an hour wage, you can see that a $7 razor was like 3 hours worth of salary.

But onto my argument for salary keeping up with the rising prices of razors...

Based on inflation alone, the $7 razor would be worth $40 today. This is equivalently a 5.7X increase. Likewise, the $5K you would have been making in 1967 would be equivalent to $28.6K now (also about a 5.7X increase). It should be clear that the rate of inflation between 1967 and 2005 is about 5.7X.

By todays standards a man making the average $40K a year is earning an $800 a week pay check for a 40 hour week. That's like $20 an hour. If he were to spend the same 3 hours salary on a razor, he should be able to buy a $60 razor. But the cost of the razor we said should have only inflated to $40. So salary is keeping up with inflation.

But a new straight razor isn't $40, or even $60 any more. Now I see prices of commercially made blades from DoVo and TI for $100-$200. NOS blades are equivalently as expensive. That's almost a day's pay depending on how much you spend. My point was that in the coming future, at this rate, a razor will cost a week's pay.

Ahhh . . . so you're saying razor prices are increasing faster than salaries. Fair enough!

Edit: your extrapolation argument seems as good a reason as any to buy more razors now.