I wish I could find the source, but I read a quote from someone that grew up back around the turn of the last century.
She said, "I never thought I'd be so wealthy as to have my own automobile. And I never thought I'd be so poor to not afford any servants"
Also, housing prices are highly regional. My brother bought his first house (4 bed, 2 bath) in our hometown for $58k about five years ago. Now he lives in a similarly sized house on 20 acres of land that he paid $200k for.
I live in a more populated area, but I also bought my house (3 bed, 2.5 bath) three years ago for $100k.
Its automation / systemization / manufacturing vs. limited throughput.
Cars can be built on assembly lines, mostly by machines, with very few humans doing the labor, and thanks to the speed of manufacturing, many millions can be built every year.
How do you "build" servants? Right now, a Mommy and a Daddy have to romp around until Mommy gets pregnant, then it takes 18 years and 9 months minimum to build that servant. But what about the systems in place to identify top talent and utilize that servant better? What happens if that servant is tested and has a 140 IQ. Well then we need her to be a nuclear physicist, or a cardiovascular surgeon, or an AI researcher. She's wasted as a servant, and we can't afford to waste our resources in the modern world.
The problem with Agatha Christie's quote is her outdated understanding of the world. In 1910, when Christie was 20 years old, the smartest person born to the lowest class of British society had precisely dick-all chance of rising to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, even if it was clear to everyone he interacted with that he could easily do the requisite work.
I suppose one day someone will say, "I never imagined I would be rich enough to afford a robotic kitchen, but too poor to live on Mars..." or some such nonsense.
I believe the person who said that was Agatha Christie.
As to measuring inflation generally via the proxy of housing, the relationship is confounded by regulation that subsidizes demand and restricts supply, especially in cities like SF & NY, which is almost guaranteed to raise prices. In lots of other arenas, e.g. access to fresh food, real prices have gone down over time in America.
And just goods in general, but a lot of jobs with it as a lot of retail markups were from retail inefficiencies.
Now you’re increasingly < 10 miles from a Walmart and Amazon will deliver nearly everywhere.
15 years ago, a lot of this was still accessible, but you’d have to plan your Walmart trip or trudge through eBay or umpteen online retailers to cut out the b&m markups.
I wish I could find the source, but I read a quote from someone that grew up back around the turn of the last century.
She said, "I never thought I'd be so wealthy as to have my own automobile. And I never thought I'd be so poor to not afford any servants"
Also, housing prices are highly regional. My brother bought his first house (4 bed, 2 bath) in our hometown for $58k about five years ago. Now he lives in a similarly sized house on 20 acres of land that he paid $200k for.
I live in a more populated area, but I also bought my house (3 bed, 2.5 bath) three years ago for $100k.