Getting your oil changed is expensive. Today I paid almost $60.00 for the privilege. What happened? I remember getting oil changes for around $20.00, and that can't have been that long ago. I mean sure, the price has gone up over the years, but it seems like it has jumped quite a bit in the last year. Looking at my invoice, there is no filter/used oil dispoasal fee. I did rather rashly allow the place to top off my anti-freeze, which cost me $10.00, but that only drops the bill down to $50.00.
On the plus side, though, the place I went (and where I always go: Jiffy Lube) was a lot less annoying than they usually are. They used to be called the Grease Spot ('til they got bought out some years ago). Back then you could drive your own car into the bay, and they didn't clobber you with a long, pointless spiel about 'signature service'. Then some suit at Jiffy Lube Corporate must have decided a spiel would, I don't know, make the typical customer feel better about the place or something. From the word go I pegged it as useless sloganeering (a practice I abhor).
Today, there was no spiel. The guy who met me didn't ask if I wanted the 'Signature Service' just if I wanted an oil change. Also, he hardly tried to up-sell on me at all. If they hadn't been out of coffee it would have been a perfect visit.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
The value of money, then and now
I was following links on Wikipedia and ended up reading about the Alaska Purchase. This led me to the Louisiana Purchase, and a claim by the author (or editor(s)) of the article that the $15 million purchase price paid by the United States to France was the equivalent of $278 million in 2007. That struck me as rather low, to whit: in 1863 a private soldier in the Union Army was paid $13 a month (room, board and clothing were provided). In 1985 a U.S. private soldier (yours truly) was paid $750 a month (room, board and clothing still provided). That is an increase of 57 times in number of dollars paid, versus just 18.5 times for the supposed value of the Louisiana Purchase.
As with most Wikipedia articles, there were links to the references used. In this case, http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ which is a facinating site on its own. It is certain the author of the Louisiana article used the Consumer Price Index comparison. But if you plug in my Civil War to 1985 numbers, the unskilled wage comparison is a better fit. In fact, if the numbers are accurate, Union soldiers were better paid than their 1985 counterparts! The comparison we need to look at in my mind, though, is the the 'relative share of GDP' one. If we plug the Louisiana Purchase numbers in and look at that, we get a modern value of $430 billion!
I guess the whole point of this is, when someone compares historic prices to current prices, you need to ask, "What is your frame of reference?" Because depending on how you look at the problem, you may get a misleading answer.
As with most Wikipedia articles, there were links to the references used. In this case, http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ which is a facinating site on its own. It is certain the author of the Louisiana article used the Consumer Price Index comparison. But if you plug in my Civil War to 1985 numbers, the unskilled wage comparison is a better fit. In fact, if the numbers are accurate, Union soldiers were better paid than their 1985 counterparts! The comparison we need to look at in my mind, though, is the the 'relative share of GDP' one. If we plug the Louisiana Purchase numbers in and look at that, we get a modern value of $430 billion!
I guess the whole point of this is, when someone compares historic prices to current prices, you need to ask, "What is your frame of reference?" Because depending on how you look at the problem, you may get a misleading answer.
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