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In the 1950's, steak was cheap


Randomguy

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3 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Young couples all seem to be able to have steak several times a week in the movies, big ones, too.

Could steak have been cheaper back then, cheap enough that just married couples could afford to have it whenever?

That's the movies.

Getting history from movies is like asking a hooker for love.

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28 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

I think housing was cheaper then.  Cars, too.

It must have been cheaper, back when people ate far more red meat and there was far less heart disease and diabetes.

Are you sure you are not comparing apples to oranges?  Yes, meat was cheaper, but people also did not make as much money.  However, detection of diseases has also improved, and with more research relationships between diets and diseases have improved.  That doesn't mean some mistakes have not been made, but that is what research is all about, continually testing new theories.  When did type II diabetes become such a big thing, and why, diets, better and more frequent testing, etc.?  Hell, I am type II, and I'd not heard about it until diagnosed in 1999.   I also personally, think that cancer was around long before it became a 'buzz' word, but detection was not adequate to determine that as a cause of death.  Discuss?

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My Dad and I sat down a while ago and talked about housing and prices in relation to expenses.  He worked 49 years for the same company and started at $0.18/hr.  He remembers when he finally got the raise up to $0.60/hr because he was making a cent a minute.

He bought the land and built the house I grew up in for $11,000. Based on what he was making at the time and then extrapolating that to what I am making today, works out to me buying a house of comparable value I am in now.  

Things were cheaper, but it is in big things at least comparable to 55 years ago

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56 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

.35 for beer in this movie, too.

.35 was what I paid for a 36 oz. fishbowl of draft beer when I would get off work in the morning. Zeka’s is Sharpsville had 15 cent drafts all the time. A $100 a week paycheck meant you were making big money back then. It’s really hard to compare the times were different.

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1 hour ago, sheep_herder said:

Are you sure you are not comparing apples to oranges?  Yes, meat was cheaper, but people also did not make as much money.  However, detection of diseases has also improved, and with more research relationships between diets and diseases have improved.  That doesn't mean some mistakes have not been made, but that is what research is all about, continually testing new theories.  When did type II diabetes become such a big thing, and why, diets, better and more frequent testing, etc.?  Hell, I am type II, and I'd not heard about it until diagnosed in 1999.   I also personally, think that cancer was around long before it became a 'buzz' word, but detection was not adequate to determine that as a cause of death.  Discuss?

My grandma died in the early fifties of cancer, grandpa died in the late fifties of heart disease.

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1 hour ago, Randomguy said:

Young couples all seem to be able to have steak several times a week in the movies, big ones, too.

Could steak have been cheaper back then, cheap enough that just married couples could afford to have it whenever?

Steak wasn't cheap in the 50's - 60's.  I was rare when my family could afford it, except in the cheap cuts for soup.

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1 hour ago, MickinMD said:

Steak wasn't cheap in the 50's - 60's.  I was rare when my family could afford it, except in the cheap cuts for soup.

But you could find meatloaf anywhere.

As far as income goes, it's complicated. They lived simpler lives, much simpler lives. But, at the same time, they were typically a single paycheck family. And he worked fewer hours.

 

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3 hours ago, Randomguy said:

I think housing was cheaper then.  Cars, too.

It must have been cheaper, back when people ate far more red meat and there was far less heart disease and diabetes.

It's why people lived so much longer back then! Ah, the good old days!

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5 hours ago, Randomguy said:

Young couples all seem to be able to have steak several times a week in the movies, big ones, too.

Could steak have been cheaper back then, cheap enough that just married couples could afford to have it whenever?

Hookers were cheaper

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19 minutes ago, wilbur said:

I remember when a porterhouse steak fed a family of four.  Meat was a much smaller part of the meal back then. 

I have a set of dishes from about a hundred years ago. I think they were a wedding present for my grandparents.

The coffee cups hold 4 ounces, the dinner plates are almost as small as plates for sides are now.

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On 9/2/2019 at 4:35 PM, Zephyr said:

My Dad and I sat down a while ago and talked about housing and prices in relation to expenses.  He worked 49 years for the same company and started at $0.18/hr.  He remembers when he finally got the raise up to $0.60/hr because he was making a cent a minute.

He bought the land and built the house I grew up in for $11,000. Based on what he was making at the time and then extrapolating that to what I am making today, works out to me buying a house of comparable value I am in now.  

Things were cheaper, but it is in big things at least comparable to 55 years ago

You're right, just not about that. Gramps had diabetes, and part of my childhood in the 50s was living with artificial sweeteners.

This is complicated, I may talk more manana, but for now, there is one statistic that I find illustrative. The number of hours worked, per family, increased from the 1960s to the big crash a decade ago... almost 300%.

A lot of what financed the improved standard of living was working more hours. You see wives moving into the workplace, and then kids, in a big way. You also see a lot more overtime.

Medicine has improved enormously. When I was young, you had a heart attack, they told you to enjoy a rocking chair. Now they tell you to exercise. Infant mortality has been cut in half. Which is weird, as kids have gotten safer, parents have gone nuts with fear.

In 1972, I spent 6 months in Europe. When I exchanged money to get ready to go home, I noticed the dollar didn't buy quite as many schilling as it has 6 months earlier. It was a small amount, but the idea that the value of money could change, seemed odd at the time.

The PP, Purchasing Power of the dollar has been in decline. Partly that reflects inflation, if you add more dollars, each individual one is worth a little less. That assumes the economy is a constant, just for the sake of argument.

 

 

 

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