I wish I didn’t have to do what I do for a living. While it’s nice to talk to people, and protect them from the ravages of inflation, it would be far better if such businesses as mine, didn’t have to exist. I’ve been writing about what life was like when I was a kid, when many of you weren’t even born, and for the last of this series, let me explain how 2010 is so totally different from say 1946, or after WW II.
There were lots of jobs for the unskilled. Elevators were mostly manually operated, and people didn’t have to pump their own gas, for two observations. Grocery stores had no bar codes to automatically enter prices, and all drug stores had what are now known as ’compounding’ pharmacies. All drug stores ’compounded’ things, and didn’t just transfer pills from one bottle to another. There were no computer diagnostics for auto troubles, and the shade tree mechanic could fix things. That meant lots of jobs for the un-skilled, or moderately skilled. Unemployment in 1946 was almost zero. I made extra money hauling groceries in my wagon, and believe it or not, I also served the Washington Post. Times were OK.
I thought, as a teen, that if I could make $55 a week for the rest of my life, I would do just fine. That $55 would buy me 275 gallons of gasoline, 550 ice cream cones, 1100 Cokes, 78 gallons of milk, 1833 first class stamps, five tires, and a nice two bedroom apartment rented for $45 a month. My Dad paid his pharmacists $125 week, his best drug clerk $65 a week, and the rest $55. A new home could be bought for well under $10,000.
Coins were made of 90% silver, and a play on a juke box was a nickel, as was a hamburger from a White Tower. No McDonalds or Burger Kings then. Few had ever seen a hundred dollar bill, and if you went to Las Vegas, Reno, Southern Md., Louisiana, or a lot of other places where they were legal, a nickel would pull the lever on a slot machine 1100 times. I have a 1946 Mills nickel slot, and its fun to save nickels in it. No credit cards, overdraft privileges, and no branch banks. Kid’s matinees for nine cents, and cigarettes 13 cents or two packs for a quarter. The cancer from cigarettes scare didn’t come about till 1965. Mortgages were usually from two to three percent interest, and the federal government didn’t get involved in them in any way. No Freddie and Fanny. If a bank was solid, and the would be borrower was also, a mortgage was obtained. A new car was $1200, but before the war they were half that. World War Two, generally doubled consumer prices, because the war was fought with borrowed money, which increased the currency supply. Before that war, there had been no inflation for over a hundred years. Dollars could be placed in a bank with absolute certainty that they would hold their value.
Since I was only seven when that war started, I can’t remember economic details before it began, The point is that living was a lot easier then, than it is now. A dollar would go a lot further, buy more merchandise, food, or other items than it will now. We made less, but prices were so low, that what we made, gave us a higher standard of living than we have now. Everything was made in America, and I mean everything. Factories were humming, and a foreign made car, radio, or food item, was simply unknown. We exported everything, and imported little. Everyone wanted our goods, machinery, cars, and agricultural output. While Mercedes is probably the best car in the world now, after WW II they were pretty crude, and not imported. No one would want one anyway, since Cadillacs, Lincolns, and Packards set the world’s standard for quality and luxury.
It is impossible to turn the clock back. It is also impossible to ever repay the national debt, other than with unbacked printing press money, and that’s why me, son David and daughter Melissa are in business, to protect your assets from the ravages of printing press money, commonly known as inflation. The lies continue to emit from D.C., and the official cost of living figure is a damned lie. The buck slides, and your savings in dollars slides. Dollars buy less every day, and the degeneration will only increase, since there is no other solution other than constant printing, or as they call it, “quantitative easing.” The end of 100% of all unbacked paper monies is zero, and for the first time in history, all currencies are backed by nothing. Will they all go to zero, or world wide hyper inflation? I don’t know, but I do know that you shouldn’t store your water in a leaky bucket or go fishing in a leaking boat.
TUESDAY
Already, the vote frauds are being reported, 100% committed by frantic Democrats. Could this turn the election? In Nevada, the only reason Harry Reid has a chance, is because 100% of Las Vegas and Reno casinos are union, from the janitors, to the waiters and performers. As if that weren’t bad enough, the SEIU union services the electronic voting machines! In blue California, Governor Moonbeam might win because of heavy union membership, and Hispanics who mistakenly believe that Democrats are their friends. Vote early and often.
P.S. the corrections in gold and silver seem to be very brief, and I wouldn’t count on a massive reduction in prices, because world wide, people are uneasy, and want the safety of gold and silver.