But your car now has bluetooth, digital radio and tire pressure monitors, so it all balances out in the magic basket of goods.
Re:Savings and Loan Crisis 1980–1989
by jrochkind1 on Monday May 01, 2023 @03:10PM
(#35777633)
All things I don't want, and can't really buy a car without.
But yeah, I think the fact that Americans, at all income levels, have more stuff than they did 40 years ago, is part of understanding the macro picture. More stuff does not always mean more quality of life.
My car from 2010 will forever have tire pressure alerts because I am not shelling out $1k to replace the broken tire pressure monitors. As an example, they're more of an annoyance to me. I don't use bluetooth or digital radio either, but yes, my car does have bluetooth. Don't see the point in it myself.
The only new feature I wish my car had is a nice display that is hooked up to a backup camera, or even better, the ability for the car to automatically park itself, especially parallel parking in tight spots.
I fear my sarcasm was a little too subtle ;)
Prices of articles can vary due to changes in the price level and due to other causes (such as obsolescence, changes in consumer preferences, and so on). CPI only informs us about changes in the price level, it doesn't tell us anything about anything else. So the fact that the price of a particular article hasn't changed exactly according to CPI is completely normal, and not a reason to believe that the CPI is "wrong".
Then the CPI should never be used to say, "This home worth ~$30k in 1958 is worth ~$300k today," when such a statement is so blatantly inaccurate.
You could say "in 1958 this home was worth ~$300k in today's dollars" which is less misleading.
Redfin has it at $818,954 https://www.redfin.com/NE/Omaha/5202-Underwood-Ave-68132/hom...
Not a million, but closer to that than to #329k.
> The Berkshire Hathaway CEO still resides in the five-bedroom home in central Omaha, Nebraska, he purchased for $31,500 in 1958, which is about $329,505 in today’s dollars.
But the house clearly isn't worth only $329,505 in "today's dollars." Sure, it's more modest than a full-blown mansion, but it's still worth a lot more than that, closer to about a million dollars. And that's including if you were to try buying the house with zero knowledge or context that Warren Buffett once lived in it.
Of course, these things are all 'worth' what someone will actually pay for them, but unless we believe that that housing market is so screwed that Buffett's house would sell for ~$330k if the housing market crashed down to reality (which would actually imply potential deflation and a CPI that would result in the home being worth much lower, per "real" dollar figures), that house is never selling for less than $330k. Not even less than $660k, in my opinion. The only way these homes would come close to their price in CPI is if something catastrophic happened to the neighborhoods in which they exist.