Thanks for digging up that info. Very interesting. I tracked down some more data you might find interesting.

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
see new post for info on this

In reply to this comment by notarobot:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I am not a big fan of Glen either, but I couldn't see a finer display of argumentum ad hominem above me.


The only way this could have been better illustrated would be to follow up with a similar chart showing value vs. inflation. Maybe start at 1900 or 1908 as 100% value and show how the value of each dollar decreases over time.

Anyone know what that might look like?

^ GeeSussFreak

Thanks for tracking that info down. I found some more data..

In 1900, $100.00 from 2006 is worth:

$4.04 using the Consumer Price Index
$4.71 using the GDP deflator
$1.51 using the value of consumer bundle
$0.88 using the unskilled wage
$0.61 using the nominal GDP per capita
$0.16 using the relative share of GDP

In 2006 $100.00 from 1900 is worth:

$2,476.66 using the Consumer Price Index
$2,124.46 using the GDP deflator
$6,602.73 using the value of consumer bundle
$11,412.86 using the unskilled wage
$16,316.15 using the nominal GDP per capita
$64,073.94 using the relative share of GDP

In just over 100 years, the dollar has lost between 96 and 99.8 percent of its value, depending on how you measure. Meaning that a penny in 1900 more then likely worth more then a dollar today.

The source I used does not measure the last two years, as the most recent data is not yet all finalized. I can only imagine what 2007 and 2008 have done to the value of money.

As a share of the U.S. GDP, I could happily live on $100 per year of 1900's money.

see new post for info on this

In reply to this comment by notarobot:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I am not a big fan of Glen either, but I couldn't see a finer display of argumentum ad hominem above me.


The only way this could have been better illustrated would be to follow up with a similar chart showing value vs. inflation. Maybe start at 1900 or 1908 as 100% value and show how the value of each dollar decreases over time.

Anyone know what that might look like?

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I am not a big fan of Glen either, but I couldn't see a finer display of argumentum ad hominem above me.


The only way this could have been better illustrated would be to follow up with a similar chart showing value vs. inflation. Maybe start at 1900 or 1908 as 100% value and show how the value of each dollar decreases over time.

Anyone know what that might look like?

In some way one can say that colonial actions by the British government at the time, created a volatile situation in the post colonial world, leaving a spectre of war and instability in the same way we see played out in the creation and seperation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Agreed on the analogy, with the added factors of WW2 going on and complicating Britain's commitments and Jewish ambitions considerably. My problem with this video is instead of portraying the complexities that led to what was a civil war within Palestine between jews and arabs, it portrays only a British supported Zionist military occupation of all of Palestine. In my book that is just as indefensible as saying that Palestinian civilians deserve to live in fear because some of their 'leaders' are some very bad mofos.


Essentially nearly three decades before, it was preordained that a Jewish state be created in Judea, the British government finding favour with Zionist interests.


But that is again only partially true. Britain simply stated they would not object to Zionist ambitions in Palestine. Later on after Balfour though some Zionist terrorists changed Britains position by killing a bunch of people they didn't like. Israel wound up arresting and deporting a hundred some such Zionists to Britain tor trial to avoid Britain becoming hostile toward them.

My other major beef with the presentation here is that it completely ignores the treatment of Jewish people in Palestine under the Arab majority from 1900 to the early 1940s. The Jews tolerated many of the same restrictions and abuses that Palestinians 'enjoy' today. I'm obviously not saying two wrongs make a right, I'm saying that both were wrong. Pretending like this video does that Zionists just decided in 1948 to chase out all the Arabs that had previously treated them kindly as equals is false. Worse, that false presentation creates a, I'll say deliberate, bias against Israel.

I don't blame The_Dragon for his ignorance. He's a product of larger propaganda campaigns. He:

1. Doesn't know the difference between real socialism and progressive income tax / healthcare subsidies (which the USA has had since the early 1900's).
2. Doesn't know the difference between a free and democratic socialism (like France, Canada, Norway, etc) and a stalinist dictatorship like the former soviet union. People actually have more freedom in France/Canada/Norway than in the USA.

McCarthyism is still a thorn in our side, that propaganda and descendant propaganda enticing people to unjustifiably conflate any sympathy for the poor realized as an economic policy with the worst sort of repressive dictatorship, and robbing them of any ability to understand the minds of their opponents by projecting straw men everywhere.

Damn, this genuinely scared me. If these people are willing to make such hateful statements, not only in public, but in public and on camera, imagine what they say in private.

On a deeper note, why do Americans have such a negative view of socialism/communism?

In regards to socialism, I'm guessing that most Americans a) don't really know what socialism is, and/or b) don't realize that most of America's large institutions are socialized (police, firefighters, libraries, postal service, education, road maintanence, etc.).

In regards to communism, it's a strange phenomenon considering that in the early 1900's, the communist party was one of the most popular third parties in America. Was it merely McCarthyism that destroyed that philosophy in USA or something else? Do most American's really know what communism is?

Automatic upvote for the early 1900's music indicating the raucous and rambunctious shenanigans.

>> ^MINK:
^whereas the pharmaceutical industry is a group of competent and honest people with incentives to make people healthy? how about that health insurance industry? they have your health as their number one priority?


They don't have to be competent and honest, they simply have to be put in an environment in which their desires to collude with government-specific powers are disabled. Neo-con socialists and democratic socialists alike (this includes you) vote for people who want to subsidize, charge income taxes, and inflate, but tell me: how does a company bribe a politician for a special subsidy when subsidies are illegal? How does a company bribe a politician for a special tax credit if income taxes don't exist? A libertarian like Ron Paul knows the powers were idealist in nature and can't but be abused, so he's going to remove them entirely. That's exactly how you solve the problem. It isn't by talking tough with one hand and taking a lobbyist's payout on the other like every other candidate. And it isn't Nader's solution to get ANOTHER government agency to oversee this bullshit which will invariably degenerate into another bloodsucking corrupt agency after his well-meaning sponsors die off and are replaced by the order of the day.

And regarding health quality, the average lifespan of a white American male has gone from 50 in 1900 to almost 80 today. That's pretty good considering we eat like crap. You want to cite socialist nations which are dependent on imports developed by capitalist sources? How about the horror stories where people are waiting months for a scan to reveal a tumor before it's too late? Or how about the true cases of people who had tumors, but the government hospitals refused to operate on them because they didn't believe their chances of surviving were good enough to justify the cost of operating? At which point they paid for private care and lived.

The two things you're missing are these: companies are out to make a sustainable profit. Government is supposed to make sure they're not infringing on rights, and to provide courts for recourse in the event that they do. In that environment, the only way to make a profit and keep it is to give customers what they want. Do you want bullshit drugs that make you sick? No. So how could a company profit from ruining your life? With the internet and informational publications as easy to obtain as ever, they can't.

If you research some more, you'll find that the HMO act and Medicare are some of the most fiscally irresponsible and collusive enablements out there. Those, the central bank, and inflation enabled by not restricting the government to non-inflatable money are THE reasons private health care costs (and gas, and groceries, and well... everything) are becoming increasingly unaffordable. These are all socialist policies doomed to failure and that's exactly what you're getting. And your solution is more government? You're NUTS. You're barking up the completely wrong tree.

>> ^MINK:
^jesus i have no idea why people want to privatise EVERYTHING. We live together in a community. A little bit of "commun"ism is natural. Otherwise you are talking about walking around with a concealed loaded weapon all day, paying corporations to fix your gunshot wounds. Instant utopia, eh?


Communism/socialism is defined as what percentage of your labor is owned "communally" via its populist government rather than its earner. If you own someone else's labor, why work harder than the next guy? Where's the disincentive to being the lazy, unproductive one in the group when you're gauranteed the same share? Where's the incentive to work and think harder than anyone and innovate new things to get a bigger share? What happens when the government dictates unproductive positions in society, like who the artists and athletes are? These are the crushing oversight that causes every socialist big government economy to degenerate into equal misery and financial collapse.

>> ^MINK:
^I mean private TV companies are so competent and efficient, right? Let's do for our health what we did for our TV networks!! wohooo!


Besides the fact that airwaves are heavily regulated by government already, you want the content itself to be owned entirely by the government because private owners have a political bias one way or the other? Guess what happens when the government owns it. All channels = one side. I must be dreaming you said that and got rated up by the idealist socialist smeg-for-brains on this site. You don't understand the inherent costs of the best system (capitalism), you're just blinded by the false promise of a benevolent dictator who will come in and sweep away the scapegoats, and in the process you and people like you will lead us to bankruptcy and fascism.

yea. cuz from 1900 to 1950, and 1950 to 2000 there were like, no changes to anything.

exponents anyone...

Nice video. I agree with most of it.

I'd like to remind you that plenty of immigrants starved to death in the United States around 1900 without any "socialist policy destroying the economy". With the exception of railroad land grants, the USA was nearly laissez-faire until 1906. Monopolies thrived anyway.

If you want a recent example of price-fixing by suppliers whose initiation did not require government help (but ending it did require government help), look up the SDRAM collusion scandal of the early 2000s.

OPEC's openly stated goal is to control oil prices by collusive production-limiting, so it's ridiculous to call that a "tinfoil hat" allegation. They succeed because demand for oil is not very elastic and their competitors cannot easily increase production. Also, irrespective of OPEC, the price of oil will continue to rise as the limited worldwide reserves are consumed and demand continues to rise. OPEC and the United States are playing it well by conserving their reserves. The price of oil, relative to gold, will probably double by 2020.

And I do support nuclear power. Don't be so insolent as to presume that any left-leaning person you meet online supports every plank of the Green Party Platform.

A large conglomerate can drive all its competition in a particular niche out of business by selling at a slight loss. Or the conglomerate offer to buy the competitors first, and then run the holdouts out of business. Then they can raise prices to whatever they want and make a profit more than enough to compensate for the earlier loss. Some new capitalist will presume that he can sell the product cheaper, so he will waste the overhead cost of market entry before getting run out of business by the larger company selling at a loss again. Then the larger company goes back to selling at very high prices without any competitors. In any market with high entry overhead costs and impracticality of long-term temporal arbitrage, a monopoly can thrive without government help.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." - Adam Smith


Industries such as tap water, sewers, and electical grids are natural monopolies. There is not one place in the world where you have a choice of which tap water grid to connect to, or which sewer network to connect to, or which power grid to connect to.

No, it's been ages, and believe me when I tell you.... it hurts man. ::sniff::


>> ^gorgonheap:
Have I told you lately, that I love you?
>> ^swampgirl:
>> ^gorgonheap:
Yeah why is it we don't have any videos from the 1900's?

yeah, there is a few: http://www.videosift.com/playlists/swampgirl/I-Love-The-10s-as-in-1910s

I've since changed the title to include all videos from 1900 to 1919, then my 20s list takes over from there

Have I told you lately, that I love you?

>> ^swampgirl:
>> ^gorgonheap:
Yeah why is it we don't have any videos from the 1900's?

yeah, there is a few: http://www.videosift.com/playlists/swampgirl/I-Love-The-10s-as-in-1910s

I've since changed the title to include all videos from 1900 to 1919, then my 20s list takes over from there

>> ^gorgonheap:
Yeah why is it we don't have any videos from the 1900's?


yeah, there is a few: http://www.videosift.com/playlists/swampgirl/I-Love-The-10s-as-in-1910s

I've since changed the title to include all videos from 1900 to 1919, then my 20s list takes over from there

Yeah why is it we don't have any videos from the 1900's?