Yeah, the numbers in the parent comments of this thread make me wonder how useful those “in today’s dollars” conversions are in general. Especially considering entire markets that existed in the 30s don’t today (or do but are vastly smaller, like horses would have played a bigger role and shoe shining was a job) and new markets exist today (like the entire tech sector). Is it even meaningful to compare money between those two timeframes without putting it in some specific market context?
We should be comparing purchasing power instead of raw inflation.
Yeah, the numbers in the parent comments of this thread make me wonder how useful those “in today’s dollars” conversions are in general. Especially considering entire markets that existed in the 30s don’t today (or do but are vastly smaller, like horses would have played a bigger role and shoe shining was a job) and new markets exist today (like the entire tech sector). Is it even meaningful to compare money between those two timeframes without putting it in some specific market context?