• EnmebaraGuesser@piefed.caOPEnglish
    6·
    12 days ago

    Yeah that’s what I got too with an inflation calculator.

    The Ford Model T started out more expensive than the Sears, at $780 in 1910, but Ford used mass production to drive the price down to $290 by the 1920’s, a mere $5500 today.

    • ToastedRavioli@midwest.social
      7·
      11 days ago

      Base inflationary calculations kind of miss the real difference in attaining X thing for Y cost in Z year though.

      $395 in 1910, when the average person made around 25¢ an hour, would have taken 1,580 hours of work for the average person to buy. Or roughly 40 (40 hour) weeks of work.

      Today, the median non-farm worker makes about $50,000 per year or $26 an hour. The equivalent of working the same number of hours at $26 an hour is just over $41,000.

      As you can see, $41,000 is a far cry from $14,000. The number honestly makes more sense considering that the median cost of a new vehicle right now is $49,000.

      Inflation calculations really fail to capture the actual power of money in relative terms, even though on a technical basis they are “correct”

      For the average person to buy an average priced car today requires an additional 300 hours of work more than it took back in 1910 for someone to be able to buy the car in this post. Inflation obscures that reality by making it look like it should take 1/3rd of the time, since its only “$14,000” today. But everyone knows that is not true just based on personal experience. Its certainly not that easy to buy a new vehicle

      • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        4·
        11 days ago

        I remember reading about the crazy tons of horseshit that was being dumped in big cities and it changed my mind on sticking with horses.

        • EnmebaraGuesser@piefed.caOPEnglish
          4·
          11 days ago

          Ditto. I’ve heard it was a huge problem for health, sanitation, and just the pure stink of it all! Example…

          In late nineteenth century, New York contained somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 horses. All transport, whether of goods or people, was drawn by horses, from fancy carriages pulled by the finest breeds, to cabs and horse trolleys and countless carts, drays, and wains…

          Each horse produced up to 30 pounds of manure per day and a quart of urine. All of this ended up in stables or along the streets. That added up to millions of pounds each day and over 100,000 tons per year (not to mention around 10 million gallons of urine).

          By the end of the 19th century, vacant lots around New York City housed manure piles that reached 40 or 60 feet high. It was estimated that in a few decades, every street would have manure piled up to third story levels.

          Streets covered by horse manure attracted huge numbers of flies. One estimate claimed that horse manure was the daily hatching ground for three billion disease spreading flies in the United States.

          It goes on about the problems of all the horses that were dying in the streets and their carcasses abandoned.

    • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      11 days ago

      You ever take a ride on one? It’s more of a toy than a vehicle. Like you’re not crossing any organ trail with a model T like people were with a horse and carriage.