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A used hardcover book in very good condition can be purchased for one penny plus the cost of shipping. This is a significant discount to its original price back in 1980.
Here is a long-term chart of the CPI. I'm showing the average inflation rate over the previous 10 years and comparing that to the average inflation rate from 1913 to 2010.
Here's a closeup of our most recent inflationary problems.
This might be your last chance to buy that book for a penny. It may be much more difficult to pay for it in the future.
Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: CPI
4 comments:
Not such a bargain after you add in 39,900% for shipping.
This is also one of my all time favorites for a penny:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0609806998/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296604094&sr=1-1&condition=used
But it pales in comparison to this king of all stock guides (also for a penny):
http://www.amazon.com/Dow-100-000-Fact-Fiction/dp/0735201374/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296604094&sr=1-5
From the Amazon review:
I highly recommend Dow 100,000 Fact or Fiction by Charles W. Kadlec. This well-researched work clearly and concisley maps out a blueprint for a period of unprecedented economic prosperity.
Mr Slippery,
Hahaha!!!
My thesis is that the baby boom caused the 1970s inflation.
I think the BB can be divided into three cohorts, 1950, 1955, and 1960.
The 1950 cohort was the foreshock, hitting the grown-up economy of housing and consumption en-masse starting in 1975-1980
The 1955 cohort was & is the Median Boomer, and they were entering their 20s in 1975 and 30s in 1985. They gave the last hurrah to the late 80s housing boom.
I think in the 1970s the domestic economy had room to expand for the baby boom -- ie untapped productive potential to support real growth (to at least support the median income for the new additions).
So the 1970s was something of a transition to the new much more high-powered high-consumer economy of the 1980s and 90s.
I am barely old enough to remember, in the early 1970s, how the surviving infrastructure and capital of the 1960s looked and operated. The 'chunk-chunk-chunk' of electric cash registers, the Green Stamps booklets.
I think supply -- partially thanks to Asian imports -- started catching up with demand in the 1980s, and, also, the middle class began losing its mojo wrt claiming its share of the national GDP.
First they came for the Coal Miners, but I was not a Coal Miner so I said nothing, etc.
We've become more productive, but it's become captured by the top 1-5%, with the lower 4 quintiles rather flat since 1980.
Troy,
My thesis is that the baby boom caused the 1970s inflation.
I'm becoming a believer in your theory a bit more each year.
Your theory is also compatible with Japan's anti-baby boom causing their deflation.
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