The US Dollar: are you richer or poorer?

I wish I could do maths, but according to this everyone in the US is richer since 1994?

www.in2013dollars.com...

Flip you guys are so lucky.

Look what happened to the Rand:

www.thesouthafrican.com...

a reply to: halfoldman

I am for sure richer today than I was in 1994.

But my wealth has not changed in the last 10 years.

originally posted by: halfoldman
I wish I could do maths, but according to this everyone in the US is richer since 1994?

www.in2013dollars.com...

That is an inflation calculator. It doesn't mean everyone is richer. It just means that the value of a dollar in 1994 was only worth about 59% of the value of a dollar today. In other words, it means the value of a dollar is less today than it was in 1994.

Put another way, if you earned $50,000 in 1994, you'd need to earn about $85,000 today to have the same purchasing power.

Many people are not richer because their salaries from 1994 or still roughly the same as they are today. So if you made $50,000 in 1994 and still make $50,000 in 2018, it is like you now only earn say $30,000 because the cost of other goods has increased so your $50,000 doesn't buy as much in 2018 as it did in 1994.

a reply to: halfoldman

Yeah, my base today with inflation is just slightly higher than my base was in 1998 dollars.

Luckily taxes are a bit lower since I was single with no deductions back then.

a reply to: halfoldman

No. You're reading that wrong.

It would take you $508 currently to buy the same stuff that $300 would buy in 1994.

Today when you put 20 bucks worth of gas in your car you get about the same as you would have gotten in 94 with 5 bucks .

Each year the USD is inflated 2.2% purposefully. 1 USD this year will be worth 0.978 cents next year. Add the total number of years and the scheme of forced inflation compounds enough to see how damaging a forced inflation/derivative driven economy can be.

This is a hidden tax on those who use money... the entire globe this means. That was the biggest missed lesson of the '08 bailouts... that the bailout money was used to hedge further betting rather than pay down any bit of deficit.

XRP is a deflationary currency and will be the fallback plan to the inability to maintain an over inflated fiat network. Bankers will squeeze every penny out of fiat it can, then will bail to block chain based ledger networks as opposed to networks of trusting humans.

When phones start coming pre-loaded with digital asset wallets when purchased new, fiat currencies will start to nose dive rapidly.

No need to worry about inflation if deflationary markets are applied to instead, right? Remove my need to trust a human to move assets on top of that, and I am all set for the switch... it's a no-brainer of an option... for me at least.

In 1994 I was making $5 per hour, today I'm making $40 per hour. I was paying @ $1 per gallon for gas in 1994, today its @ $2 per gallon. A truck in 1994 averaged 12 mpg, today they average @ 22mpg. A 25" television in 1994 was @ $300, today a 25" television is $99. A camcorder was $500+, a good camera was $500+, a good stereo was $300+, a VCR was $100, a basic personal computer was $1,000+, long distance phone calls were expensive & developing film was expensive in 1994. Now many of these things are in a smartphone, which costs less than $1000 for a top of the line model or $100 for a basic model. One can also buy a dozen eggs today for $1 & many other food items are also extremely affordable. As technology continues to advance, we will see more costs of living come down. For instance, within the next decade or two we will probably see solar powered self-driving vehicles, which can tow trailers that we live in, so there will be no need to own or rent real estate. Insurance rates, automobile prices & home prices/rent have gone up since 1994 but they are offset by prices falling or eliminated, as well as, increased efficiencies in other areas.

Here is a link to a thread I did four years ago about the real value of our fiat Monopoly money. By my calculations, we should be paying people extra to take our nearly worthless paper currency by now.

Historic value of U.S. copper and silver coins and present day metal values

The US Dollar: are you richer or poorer?

I was fairly comfortably retired.

But I lost everything in 08 and destitute living on the kindness of others; I reinvented my self with a skill set that works very well.

Union Proud, Union Strong

That's not what it means. If I'm buying something for $500 today when it cost $300 in 1994, it means my money isn't going anywhere near as far as it used to.

Nobody's richer. We''re all technically poorer when it takes almost twice the money to buy the same thing.

originally posted by: JBIZZ
In 1994 I was making $5 per hour, today I'm making $40 per hour. I was paying @ $1 per gallon for gas in 1994, today its @ $2 per gallon. A truck in 1994 averaged 12 mpg, today they average @ 22mpg. A 25" television in 1994 was @ $300, today a 25" television is $99. A camcorder was $500+, a good camera was $500+, a good stereo was $300+, a VCR was $100, a basic personal computer was $1,000+, long distance phone calls were expensive & developing film was expensive in 1994. Now many of these things are in a smartphone, which costs less than $1000 for a top of the line model or $100 for a basic model. One can also buy a dozen eggs today for $1 & many other food items are also extremely affordable. As technology continues to advance, we will see more costs of living come down. For instance, within the next decade or two we will probably see solar powered self-driving vehicles, which can tow trailers that we live in, so there will be no need to own or rent real estate. Insurance rates, automobile prices & home prices/rent have gone up since 1994 but they are offset by prices falling or eliminated, as well as, increased efficiencies in other areas.

This is true. Inflation doesn't really capture that you can actually buy better goods cheaper. Inflation tends to mask that the quality of life because of technology has continually increased even though salaries may appear stagnant.

For example, in the 80s, no one had cell phones except doctors and executives. Now kids in middle school have iphones that are 100x's better the nicest cell phone in the 80s that would have cost thousands of dollars then.

I've pointed this out in debates about the "poor" in the US. Poor people in the US are really only poor in mind state, not actual quality of life compared to the rest of the world because our standard of living is so high.

a reply to: Edumakated

The thing you don't take into account is how these things become a necessary part of life. Like your cell phone analogy. I can't do my job without a cell phone. I'm not furnished one and my job certainly doesn't pay my phone bills. It's just expected. So in order to do my job I need my phone.

It may be cheaper but is no longer a choice.