if all payment by square inch

if all payment by square inch

Circa August, 2011.

And a dollar = 8 square inches:

Then a coke at a fast food restaurant that cost $0.25 (2 square inches) in the 1960's would cost $1.50. (12 square inches) in 2011.

Similarly, a small hatchback car that cost 16,000 square inches in the 1960's would cost at least 120,000 square inches in 2011.

For the car, in square feet, that's 111 square feet (about the size of the floor in a small dining room) versus 833 square feet (about the size of the floor in a small one bedroom apartment).

So one can rent a dining room today for the same price as one could rent a whole apartment in the 1960s.

Now one can blame supply and demand, increased fuel costs, safety and pollution costs (and of course not dollar debasement) but a society is always judged by how it treats its least advantaged.

In the 1960s the minimum wage was about 20 square inches.

Today it's about 64 square inches.

That's an increase of 220%.

But the coke went up 500%

And the car went up 650%.

And gold went up about 5,000% (the stuff the powerful don't want US residents to buy).

So in the US society those who have power to make things happen, such as higher minimum wages and tariffs that every other country has to preserve domestic jobs, treat the least advantaged like the useless throwaways those with power perceive the least advantaged to be.

And what will the least advantaged do, well turn to more crime since they fear the police and military and won't dare revolt.

But if they did revolt they would find those with power to have vulnerabilities like trying to hide themselves in groups in gated communities and/or high rise buildings and/or obviously huge and well kept homes and condos and town houses.

And they love their fancy cars that may have bullet proof windows but they're certainly not ram proof.

And they have built building after building with glass windows.

If the disadvantaged ever figure out they could easily create many, many window replacement jobs, jobs that can't be outsourced...