OT: Thought Experiment: How Much Money Would You Want to Live in the Past?
I was discussing this with some friends over the weekend and wanted to discuss here. The premise is simple: how much money would you want to be given in order to live in a different era? $63,000 is the median household income in the U.S. today. That doesn't make someone rich, but with that salary one can have a smartphone, a TV, air conditioning, refrigeration, a car, access to travel, internet, and many more modern luxuries that we take for granted today.
Would you trade having a salary of $126,000 to live in 1950, a time when TV was its infancy, there were no computers, there was no internet, travel was incredibly expensive. How about earning $1,000,000 per year in 1900? Medicine was nowhere near what it is today, air conditioning and refrigeration did not access, cars were not mainstream, air travel was unheard of. How about living in 1800? $10,000,000 per year? Or how about living in the middle ages? Would you trade your current position for being a King or Queen then?
The idea of this is to be pretty open-ended. Also don't overthink the implications of inflation, investing, salaries vs. net worth, etc. This is really just gauging how much money you would want to have/earn if you were to live in a time with fewer common luxuries.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:19 PM ^
Seems easy to me. $126,000 was a huge amount of money in 1950. The average physician made about $11,000/yr. The basic material elements of a good life were in place (cars, air travel, air conditioning, etc.).
You could afford a great house on the beach in San Diego, which would have been paradise with a population of about 500.000 (you could probably have a couple others in interesting places too), nice cars, etc. The US dollar was worth a fortune so you'd also have the ability to travel the world and see other cultures when they were still more unique, less homogenized.
The only concern would be the state of medical care.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:44 PM ^
Send me back to1980 with $100K and I will turn that in to a fortune and have a lot of fun too. Technology was emerging, after a short recession the economy was about to go bang, colorful music and fashion, great TV shows and movies...and probably the last decade which still had a bit of Family and Community in it.
PS Getting to watch Anthony Carter too
I would consider 1990....but the music was not nearly as good, and the Clintons....so no.
So 1980 it is. Take me back...do do do doooo
Do you know what the future holds?
If so I'll take a tiny pay cut and go back 6 weeks. I'd be rich by today.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:44 PM ^
Just take me back to this...
April 21st, 2020 at 11:22 PM ^
Could you convince him not to take the Yankees contract?
Nice picture. I've always admired your taste, Vlad.
April 21st, 2020 at 11:22 PM ^
I'll go back ten years for free as I'd instantly become rich with my knowledge of the future.
$1 billion dollars in the early 1990's. No social media.
As an African American, I'll politely decline on living in the past.
1920s would be furthest I'd go back. Wouldn't need much maybe $5/day to get food and see what the roaring 20s was about
70s make enough to go to woodstock
80s six figure income on wall street in NYC to see what it was actually like since the term originated around then also bull run and also NYC in the 80s
was alive in the 90s probably wouldn't go back to that at all