[ARC5] OT Costs - and everything else

[Mike Morrow]

John wrote:

>I bought a new VW Bug in the mid 1960s about $1200
>You can't get ANY car for $4800 to $6000 today.

>From the BLS calculator, $1200 1965 dollars equals about $8200
2009 dollars.  And given how primitive, inefficient, unsafe, and
featureless cars of that era (especially the Bug) were compared
to today, anyone making a similar vehicle today would be lucky
to get $8200 for it, if were legal to market, which it wouldn't be.

I bought an Opel Manta in the early 1970s, and as much as I'd love
to still have it, when I inflation adjust the price I paid to the
nearest thing available today, I'd be a fool to pay the inflation
adjusted price for that Opel even if it were NOS (unless I could
sell it to a collector for big bucks).

I know of no significant error, from my experience in the last 40
years, in the numbers produced at the BLS web site.  If anything,
it seems to OVERestimate the effects of inflation a little during
the past four decades.

Mike / KK5F