They’ll have to revalue the dollar sooner or later–even with non-catastrophic rates of inflation, there will come a time when the current dollar has the buying power of the current penny, and the hundred dollar bill is the lowest practical one to carry. So they will need to either restart printing 500s, 10,000s, 100,000s and such, or lop 2 or 3 zeros off the value. So it isn’t at all unrealistic to have an adjusted 42 million that used to be 4.2 billion.
My example is caca then, since this is really mostly about general purchasing power as incentive, not about criminal activity not following a standard curve of inflation.
I love looking at retro ads on FB. If there is a menu from a restaurant, or an advertisement from a grocery store - even nylon stockings, makeup, and clothing - I immediately go to the converter and find out how much it costs in today’s money. 59 cents for a can of hash seems like peanuts to us today, but it would have been a lot more costly to the customer way back when.
Maybe, but we have no baseline for “adjustment” (nothing else is mentioned by price) so the number stands on its own. As an arbitrarily selected “big number”, it doesn’t work for me and sort of clanks when it comes up in the scene. I’m not saying it’s “unrealistic” or a flaw in the plot – I just think they should have picked a better imaginary price tag (or a different unit of currency than dollars).
I’ve been doing this for quite a while, since before on-line inflation calculators existed (printed ratios were available in reference works).
As I have stated in old posts of mine, I have been into scale modeling (kits and dioramas) for decades, and over that period in many forums (and magazine columns before that) I read people bemoaning the increase in prices. So you quickly get used to calculating the price increases for kits on the market for years to determine how much is just inflation-related and how much is just jacking up the prices.
For me, this just naturally flows into wanting to convert buying power of amounts mentioned in old books, movies, and shows. This does seem to break down a bit when you try to figure Victorian era UK costs (e.g. the original early Sherlock Holmes stories)
I read a lot of British mystery writers. The books range from WW1 to contemporary. I found this calculator: https://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp
which will convert 1922 pounds to present day dollars. I find it helps put things in context for me.
When comparing money amounts, it is good to remember that prices and wages don’t scale — standards of living have gone up. The average salary in 1968 Britain was only half the 2007 salary in real terms.
… And
I think OP speaks of, for example, a 1960 show set in 1960. What about a 1990 show set in 1870. My impression is that the dollar amounts in such films are often inflated over what they would have been.
I was watching Test Pilot the other day and Clark Gable (playing a cash-strapped barnstorming pilot) buys his new wife Myrna Loy a negligee that costs $60–which doesn’t sound like a big deal until you do the inflation calculation from 1938 and it comes to over $1000 in today’s money! For one nightie!
I won’t go to an inflation calculator, but if it’s something that’s supposed to be a lot of money, and it just isn’t, I will note it.
The only example I can think of is when I’d just got back from Italy, early 1970s, and I saw an older ('60s era so not that much older) movie where a detective was trying to bribe a guy with 400 lire. When I was there that would have been a laughable amount to try to bribe somebody. Like, 75 cents. (I coulda been a millionaire in lire.)
While watching Boardwalk Empire when a dollar amount came up my girlfriend continuously asked me “how much is that in today’s money?” So I was looking it up.
Kinda, yeah. If I’m on a 19th century or previous literature kick, people are always going on about how “so-and-so is worth 400 pounds/yr” (in income or some sort of trust) so occasionally I look it up if context doesn’t make their socio-economic strata obvious.
Also, I love looking at old Sears or Wards mail order catalogues and seeing the awesome stuff sold for pennies. A mahogany 1903 living room suite (identical to the one I have in my parlor, that I inherited part of, paid a couple thousand for the rest, then double that for new upholstery and such) oh, that cost $32 plus freight new.
I can’t find a catalog page online, but basically this. Don’t get me started on the Eastlake stuff that I collect for the upstairs. Also, have you seen some of the old home kits? :eek: They weren’t all Prairie bungalows. Oh, for a time machine…
Also, I always loved how in the “Little House on the Prairie” books, the girls had saved a few pennies from several years back, and bought their high school supplies with them. And then a few months later, after Laura got a job, agonized at spending a quarter or so on calling cards.
So in tne remake of It’s A Wonderful Life, George Bailey hits the cigar lighter, and says, “I wish I had fourteen and a half million dollars! HOT DOG!”
