[Hallicrafters] inflation

[Roger (K8RI)]

Hi Duane and all,

Duane Fischer, W8DBF wrote:
> Peter,
>
> Remember the United States went off the gold standard about 1974! 
> Prior to that, the treasury had to have an equal amount of Silver in 
> reserve to mint dimes, quarters and half dollars, as well as paper 
> Silver Certificates. The treasury also had to have an equal amount of 
> gold in reserve to back all the paper money printed. Since the United 
> States had a fixed per Troy ounce price of gold, and the rest of the 
> world had dropped their fixed price, the USA had to drop the fixed 
> price of gold, and drop the gold and silver standard system 
> altogether, so the value of our gold was the same as it was in other 
> countries.
>
> I do not recall the exact value, but the USA was at about $44 per troy 
> ounce for Gold and the rest of the world was double or triple!
>
I think the figure was $37

> When this happened, our coins and paper money were no longer backed by 
> "cash on hand" or you can only mint and print coins and bills equal to 
> the gold and silver value in the treasury! We used the GNP and all 
> sorts of other worthless devices to give the worthless coins and bills 
> "value".
>
IRRC the Government only needs to back 10% of what they give to the 
banks. The Banks only need to back 10% of what they give to us.

73

Roger (K8RI)
> The only coin worth face value after the .90% Silver was removed from 
> the dime, quarter and half dollar starting with January of 1965, was 
> the Lincoln Memorial Cent. The penny was actually worth a penny!
>
> When people saw this coming, guess what? The Lincoln Wheat Cent of 
> 1909 through 1958 and the Lincoln Memorial Cent of 1958 through 1961, 
> weighed 4.11 grams. It consisted of 95% Copper and 5% Tin and Zinc. 
> Then in 1962, they left the 95% Copper alone, but used most Zinc with 
> a little Tin! The weight of the coin dropped slightly, but it still 
> contained 95% Copper.
>
> Then as Copper rose in value, the treasury changed the Lincoln 
> Memorial Cent again in 1982. Now they removed all but 4.6% of the 
> Copper! The penny now contained 95.4% Zinc and a little Tin! The 
> weight dropped a lot this time. Hence, the Copper penny was now not 
> only worth less then a penny, it was worthless!
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Markavage" <manualman at juno.com>
> To: <hallicrafters at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 10:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [Hallicrafters] inflation
>
>
>> The value of a printed stamp, in this case 5 cents, doesn't change with
>> inflation. If they printed a 5 cent today, it's value is still 5 
>> cents. I
>> will agree that the paper and printing costs have gone up from 1965 to
>> 2008 but the value of the stamp in real dollars (or cents in this case)
>> hasn't changed. What has changed is what you can "buy" for 5 cents today
>> verses what you could buy for 5 cents in 1965. Same goes for money. A 5
>> dollar bill in 1965 is still a 5 dollar bill in 2008 unless of course 
>> you
>> have one where Lincoln's portrait is printed upside down or some other
>> strange rare printing anomaly.
>>
>> Pete, wa2cwa
>> http://www.manualman.com
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 29 May 2008 11:47:56 -0700 <lrlayton at cox.net> writes:
>>> Those 5 cent amateur radio stamps stamps from 1965 would cost around
>>> 35 cents in todays money. A Hallicrafters SX-117 that sold for $379
>>> in 1965 would be a whopping  $2584.70  now,  and todays gas at $4.00
>>> would be equivalent to  59 cents a gallon back then. The problem is
>>> that the dollar just isn't worth much these days!
>>>
>>> These numbers are from the governments own inflation calculator at
>>> http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---- Peter Markavage <manualman at juno.com> wrote:
>>> > I still have several 3 cent stamps (I think they had the Statue
>>> of
>>> > Liberty on them) that I've never used. Plus, I still have a bunch
>>> of
>>> > unused 5 cent Amateur Radio stamps that they issued "back in the
>>> good old
>>> > days".
>>> >
>>> > I also have a refund check for 10 cents issued by the U. S.
>>> Government to
>>> > some Private in the Army back in 1951 or 52. It's amazing the
>>> things you
>>> > find stuck in the pages of old manuals.
>>> >
>>> > Pete, wa2cwa
>>> > http://www.manualman.com
>>> >
>>> >
>>> ______________________________________________________________
>>>
>>>
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>
> ______________________________________________________________
>