Some things do get cheaper, and some things...

[jim_p]

For reasons that I may make clear in another posting, I was in the market for a stereo receiver. Just a plain old receiver with a tuner and amp that I could also plug a CD/DVD player, tape deck, TV audio, and maybe a turntable into. I didn't need no fancy 6.1 sound, didn't need anything bundled with speakers (got 'em already), didn't need "Home Theater". Just. A. Receiver.

Believe it or not, I finally found exactly what I was looking for at Radio Shack of all places. For $99. Not bad.

That price took me back to college daze, circa 1980. I was an MIT froshling, naive in the ways of the world and of economic reality, but I wanted some sound for my dorm room. Being not of unlimited means, I wandered into one shop and asked if I could be set up with a modest system including turntable, tuner, and tape deck for around $200. I could almost feel the disdain radiating from the staff of that establishment, informing me coolly but politely that no, such a combination was Simply Impossible in that price range. I retreated, feeling most humbled and chastened.

Back to the present day. Having secured the tuner for $99, just for grins I went and shopped around for the other components. Turntable - $99. Dual cassette deck - $99. Speakers - $60 for a pair that would suffice for a dorm room.

Final price tag: $357. For a system that would have been Really Nice for me to have back as a froshling.

Then I find an inflation calculator on the Web, and find that this would have been $160 in 1980 dollars.

FWIW, that same calculator says that the $2.13 I'm paying for gas now would have been $0.95 in 1980
which is about spot-on if I remember correctly...

Comments

[quietann.livejournal.com]

For some reason that California ad with the license plate "SAV NRG" keeps popping into my head. At 40, I do remember the oil embargo, my mom fussing at us to turn off the lights, dammit, and when the gas stations stopped giving away glasses and stuff with every (cheap) fill-up (we used the glasses from Mobil until I was 30; they were high quality giveaways!). More personally, I remember that suddenly I couldn't buy as many Breyer plastic horses, as the price went from about $2 to $10 almost overnight.

I don't get the SUV thing at all. I hear that sales of new SUVs are way off all of a sudden. Gee, I wonder why! My one regret over buying a Protege instead of another small car is that the gas mileage isn't that great.