Silver and the Minimum Wage

By Tim on 03/08/2013 in Commodities

I forget where I came across this, but it seemed worth sharing rather than just discarding it since there’s been lots of talk about raising the minimum wage lately, but far too little talk about the value of money.

Of course, there’s a lot more to this story than just the price of silver and it’s worth remembering that, in recent years, much of the commodity price increases that have been seen have not been passed through to the consumer as they once were. Nonetheless, it is an interesting comparison with 50 years ago.

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7 Responses to Silver and the Minimum Wage

  1. Anthony March 8, 2013 at 6:38 PM #

    Without the fiat currency system perhaps we would not have the growth and technology/quality of life gains since Bretton Woods.

    Reply
    • Pool Shark March 9, 2013 at 8:28 AM #

      “”Without [borrowing against the future and going deeply into debt] perhaps we would not have seen the growth and technology/quality of life gains since Bretton Woods.”

      There, fixed that for you…

      Reply
      • DCX2 March 11, 2013 at 11:25 AM #

        Do you think Intel or AMD could build a multi billion dollar fab to build computer processors without “borrowing against the future and going deeply into debt”? Where would our society be without these processors that were built with debt?

        Reply
  2. Anthony March 8, 2013 at 7:42 PM #

    Another way to look at this Tim is from a buying power vantage point. What did a two week paycheck buy you back then, compared to a two week paycheck today for the identical type job ? It took 24 hours back then to earn enough money to buy a nice business suit. Well, today it takes about 24 hours to buy a nice suit.

    Reply
  3. FreemanDjango March 9, 2013 at 8:26 AM #

    Another way to look at this is:

    The average 1 year CD interest rate in 1964 was 4%.

    Today, the average 1 year CD interest rate is about 0.25% or 1/16th of that paid in 1964.

    Reply
  4. musickcd March 11, 2013 at 2:13 PM #

    I made an offer to my Facebook friends to sell them gas for 30 cents/gallon:

    “From 1962-1964 gasoline averaged $0.30/gallon. Today, the nationwide average is $3.83/gallon. For those who believe the high gas prices are due to greedy oil companies instead of incompetent government monetary policy, I’ll make you an offer. I will still sell you gas for $0.30/gallon, but there is a catch. You have to pay me in the money of 1964 - specifically silver coins (dimes quarters, half dollars, or silver dollars). Any Takers?”

    Out of 600 friends, not a single one took me up on my offer. I bet you would get the same response.

    Reply

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