Apparently this couple purchased this particular house in the 1960s for mainly sentimental reasons. The wife's grand parents had lived in it most of their married lives and only moved out only when they were quite elderly. In all the years that this couple owned the house they had never been in the attic. That was probably because it was only accessible was through a very small door on one gable end.
As things turned out the the grand parents were the ones who stored these boxes in the attic. For their grand daughter these boxes were treasures of great value, filled as they were with family heirlooms such as a diary written by her grandmother as a teenage girl traveling across the Canadian prairies in a Red River wagon. Other items included many books, jewelry, clothing, dishes, old hand tools and shoe boxes full of letters the grand parents had received from Europe.
There was another item from that treasure that's remained in my memory more than any other - a 1905 menu from a Vancouver restaurant. I remember this because I was surprised to learn that the most expensive item on this menu was a plate of spaghetti and meat balls. The cost? Five cents! And no tax! Coffee (a large cup)
was a penny, breakfast of bacon and eggs was four cents and dessert three cents. In Vancouver during 1905 one could eat well for under twenty cents a day or dine out all month for less than six dollars. Today, January 4, 2011, you can't get one breakfast for five dollars and you would need at least fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) to eat out for a month.
The 1900 New York menu below shows that their prices were higher. There a person could have three meals a day for about one dollar, or about thirty dollars for a whole month!
So, would you rather be a millionaire under 1900 -1905 prices or under the prices of 2011?
In 1925 my grandfather bought a full basement two story home in Winnipeg Manitoba for the grand sum of $750. So in Winnipeg at that time a millionaire would have been able to purchase over 1,300 homes. Today in Winnipeg a millionaire could only purchase five homes of comparable size and age. Today that same millionaire would need two hundred sixty million dollars ($260,000,000) to purchase 1,300 homes.
So, would you rather be a millionaire under 1925 prices or under the prices of 2011?
I recently read an article that said that the number of millionaires world wide was increasing. the article suggested that these numbers proved that the recession was over. In United States alone there were 4, 715,000 millionaires. A 15.1% increase over the previous year. Canada's millionaire population increased by 4.8% to 162,143.
Even though these numbers give the appearance of a recovery we shouldn't take that as the truth. For in truth the recession continues. In truth we are in the dying days of a sick economic system.
Keep these graphs (below) in mind when you hear that things are improving and know that being a millionaire today is not the same as it was in 1905. And if you are a millionaire, these graphs should tell you that one day soon you'll need a wheel barrow to carry your money to the store in order to buy a loaf of bread.
Inflation! Isn't it wonderful?
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Comments to the author are welcomed. david.ealing@gmail.com
