Most Ordinary Americans in 2016 Are Richer Than Was John D. Rockefeller in 1916
2016 Feb 21, 6:56am 2,864 views 9 comments
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Tenpoundbass
2016 Feb 21, 7:58am
You can't do that, 1916 was then this is now.
Try doing that in reverse, 90% of the people alive in Ameirca today would perish in a 1916 Ameirca. As they don't posses one single skill that would help them survive 1916.
NDrLoR
2016 Feb 21, 8:05am
The point is you don't miss what you've never had. We don't miss the things the world will provide to people in 2116. I've always envied my parents, born in 1898 and 1902, that they got to be young adults in the 1920's. The music would make up for everything. Getting to hear and dance to a dance band in a hotel or restaurant in 1925 would be wonderful! This is an experimental sound film made by Lee deForest in 1925, it contains the first sax solo on film:
georgeliberte
2016 Feb 21, 8:08am
Yeah, the good old days were not. And of course the same world and social problems existed, if more hidden and unreported.
indigenous
2016 Feb 21, 8:23am
The joy comes from creating the future, and much of that is in the technology.
georgeliberte
2016 Feb 21, 8:26am
Not to mention access to information. A Wall Street ticker tape perhaps; but, even the most lavish private libraries or the New York Public Library would be very limited compared to the internet.. Not to mention, if you have ever looked through 'rare' (old) books, many of them are pure rubbish.
Oh and for some members, no internet means nearly zero porn!
MisdemeanorRebel
2016 Feb 21, 8:33am
Who knew most Americans had thousand acre estates, politicians at their beck and call, owned capital and didn't have to work, etc.?
Anyway, looks like the big drop happened during FDR. You'll also find the greatest increase in the standard of living, expansion of home ownership, etc. during the New Deal Era to 1970. A little bit of socialism goes a long way.
indigenous
2016 Feb 21, 8:40am
You'll also find the greatest increase in the standard of living, expansion of home ownership
Yes it works wonders when socialism bombs the shit out of it's enemies who then can no longer produce. Not to mention the real cause being the baby boom as in it was safe to create babies after FDR was dead.
justme
2016 Feb 21, 10:11am
Wow, I bet people had no idea how much better 100 years of corrupt crony capitalism would make it for all of us.
They only forgot to compare the Rockefellers of 1916 with the Wall St Masters of 2016.
Exceptionally dumb article. It is not a question of going back to 1916, it is a question of making 2016 better than it is.
Shaman
2016 Feb 21, 1:10pm
ery limited compared to the internet.. Not to mention, if you have ever looked through 'rare' (old) books, many of them are pure rubbish
This is true. Even the "greats" that wrote 100-200 years are pretty sad by today's literary standards. I tried to read a compiled works of H.P. Love craft and it was the most info-dumpy lack of action pseudo-prose and incredibly racist at every turn. Not to mention that it was all terribly predictable. I read about half the stories out of sheer bloody-minded persistence and then put it away for good. Others like Alexander Dumas are somewhat better and more readable, but still tough going in places, as well as using overly stilted language throughout. Herman Melville's "Moby Dick?" Lemme tell you this: if that "great American novel" were submitted to a publisher in 2015, it wouldn't even get a courtesy response.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/america-in-1915/462360/?utm_source=nl__link8_021216
Most Ordinary Americans in 2016 Are Richer Than Was John D. Rockefeller in 1916
Posted: 20 Feb 2016 01:35 PM PST
(Don Boudreaux)
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This Atlantic story reveals how Americans lived 100 years ago. (HT Warren Smith) By the standards of a middle-class American today, that lifestyle was poor, inconvenient, dreary, and dangerous. (Only a few years later – in 1924 – the 16-year-old son of a sitting U.S. president would die of an infected blister that the boy got on his toe while playing tennis on the White House grounds.)
So here's a question that I've asked in one form or another on earlier occasions, but that is so probing that I ask it again: What is the minimum amount of money that you would demand in exchange for your going back to live even as John D. Rockefeller lived in 1916? 21.7 million 2016 dollars (which are about one million 1916 dollars)? Would that do it? What about a billion 2016 – or 1916 – dollars? Would this sizable sum of dollars be enough to enable you to purchase a quantity of high-quality 1916 goods and services that would at least make you indifferent between living in 1916 America and living (on your current income) in 2016 America?
Think about it. Hard. Carefully.
If you were a 1916 American billionaire you could, of course, afford prime real-estate. You could afford a home on 5th Avenue or one overlooking the Pacific Ocean or one on your own tropical island somewhere (or all three). But when you travelled from your Manhattan digs to your west-coast palace, it would take a few days, and if you made that trip during the summer months, you'd likely not have air-conditioning in your private railroad car.
And while you might have air-conditioning in your New York home, many of the friends' homes that you visit – as well as restaurants and business offices that you frequent – were not air-conditioned. In the winter, many were also poorly heated by today's standards.
To travel to Europe took you several days. To get to foreign lands beyond Europe took you even longer.
Might you want to deliver a package or letter overnight from New York City to someone in Los Angeles? Sorry. Impossible.
You could neither listen to radio (the first commercial radio broadcast occurred in 1920) nor watch television. You could, however, afford the state-of-the-art phonograph of the era. (It wasn't stereo, though. And – I feel certain – even today's vinylphiles would prefer listening to music played off of a modern compact disc than listening to music played off of a 1916 phonograph record.) Obviously, you could not download music.
There really wasn't very much in the way of movies for you to watch, even though you could afford to build your own home movie theater.
Your telephone was attached to a wall. You could not use it to Skype.
Your luxury limo was far more likely to break down while you were being chauffeured about town than is your car today to break down while you are driving yourself to your yoga class. While broken down and waiting patiently in the back seat for your chauffeur to finish fixing your limo, you could not telephone anyone to inform that person that you'll be late for your meeting.
Even when in residence at your Manhattan home, if you had a hankering for some Thai red curry or Vindaloo chicken or Vietnamese Pho or a falafel, you were out of luck: even in the unlikely event that you even knew of such exquisite dishes, your chef likely had no idea how to prepare them, and New York's restaurant scene had yet to feature such exotic fare. And while you might have had the money in 1916 to afford to supply yourself with a daily bowlful of blueberries at your New York home in January, even for mighty-rich you the expense was likely not worthwhile.
Your wi-fi connection was painfully slow – oh, wait, right: it didn't exist. No matter, because you had neither computer nor access to the Internet. (My gosh, there weren't even any blogs for you to read!)
Even the best medical care back then was horrid by today's standards: it was much more painful and much less effective. (Remember young Coolidge.) Antibiotics weren't available. Erectile dysfunction? Bipolar disorder? Live with ailments such as these. That was your only option.
You (if you are a woman) or (if you are a man) your wife and, in either case, your daughter and your sister had a much higher chance of dying as a result of giving birth than is the case today. The child herself or himself was much less likely to survive infancy than is the typical American newborn today.
Dental care wasn't any better. Your money didn't buy you a toothbrush with vibrating bristles. (You could, however, afford the very finest dentures.)
Despite your vanity, you couldn't have purchased contact lenses, reliable hair restoration, or modern, safe breast augmentation. And forget about liposuction to vacuum away the results of your having dined on far too many cream-sauce-covered terrapin.
Birth control was primitive: it was less reliable and far more disruptive of pleasure than are any of the many inexpensive and widely available birth-control methods of today.
Of course, you adore precious-weacious little Rover, but your riches probably could not buy for Rover veterinary care of the sort that is routine in every burgh throughout the land today.
You were completely cut off from the cultural richness that globalization has spawned over the past century. There was no American-inspired, British-generated rock'n'roll played on electric guitars. And no reggae. Jazz was still a toddler, with only few recordings of it.
You could afford to buy the finest Swiss watches and clocks, but even they couldn't keep time as accurately as does a cheap Timex today (not to mention the accuracy of the time kept by your smartphone).
…….
Honestly, I wouldn't be remotely tempted to quit the 2016 me so that I could be a one-billion-dollar-richer me in 1916. This fact means that, by 1916 standards, I am today more than a billionaire. It means, at least given my preferences, I am today materially richer than was John D. Rockefeller in 1916. And if, as I think is true, my preferences here are not unusual, then nearly every middle-class American today is richer than was America's richest man a mere 100 years ago.
http://cafehayek.com/2016/02/40405.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CafeHayek+%28Cafe+Hayek%29