I am so frustrated with myself for not really coming to grips with the inflation / debasement for so many decades.
Reading about the published yearly inflations / interest rates was easy, but I just felt confused about it.
The reduction of purchasing power just did not feel really important in that time period of my life. Gains in income from improved skill sets & knowledge allowed increasing wages that more than offset purchasing power losses.
Then, like a frog in a pot of heating water, it was easy to forget that the debased currency effect was accumulating year by year. Life got busy, so it became harder to recognize the trap.
Retroactive analysis is that was a foolish thing to do.
An example of $ per hour earnings purchasing power. Around early 1968 (early high school time), I worked part time for pizza shop washing dishes and making pizzas for minimum wage. Net says minimum wage then was $1.60 per hour.
That is an hourly rate of 16 dimes.
Pre 1965 real silver dimes, quarters, halves were still readily available in normal currency circulation.
That means 16 dimes per hour in pre 1965 junk silver coinage was available for washing dishes in 1968. A gallon of premium real gasoline was readily available for a quarter, and it was not watered down with alcohol back then. It was quite popular for high school hot rods.
So, how would my dishwashing compare then vs now?
Dec 7, 2025. Coinflation.com shows:
silver at $ 58.36 per ounce.
Pre 65 junk silver currently purchase power worth
$ 4.21 per junk Silver dime, or
$ 42.21 per face dollar worth of junk silver.
$ 4.21 per junk Silver dime
x 16 (times 16 dimes per hour washing dishes)
= $ 67.36 PER HOUR of current equivalent value.
Wiskey Tango Foxtrot !
$ 67.36 PER HOUR x 40 hrs/wk x 52 wks/yr
that’s the equivalent of earning $140,108 yearly today for my washing dishes without any impacts from today’s increased expenses from taxes and inflation of goods, medical, insurance, etc or the raccoon’s monopoly theft effects of keeping silver values depressed.
do your own due diligence tribe folk.
fool me once, shame on you.
fool me twice, shame on me.