A Non-Sarcastic Optimistic Note

In contrast to my early-week doldrums, today I’m feeling a little Hump-Day Hope!

Allow me to toss the info your way, and maybe it’ll do the same for you:

Brad DeLong, econ prof at UC-Berkeley, wrote a stunning column for The Week. Besides having one of the worst bio-photos in a paper EVAR, DeLong has some great perspective:

- Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations went on sale in 1776 for 1.8 pounds sterling when the average annual income was 30 pounds. So a family could buy roughly 17 copies of the book on their yearly income. Today, a family could buy 6,000 copies. So at least in the sense of book-buying, we’ve multiplied our resources 350 fold.

- DeLong:

Today, buttermilk-fried petrale sole with pickled vegetables and parsley mayonnaise, served at Chez Panisse Café, costs the same share of a day-laborer's earnings as the raw ingredients for two big bowls of oatmeal did in the 18th Century.

- While only emperors could afford to hear symphonies-on-demand in the 18th-century, today you could by a world-class recording of his work for $17.99 on Amazon.

- 1776: 50% of income spent on food. Today: 20%.

DeLong ends with the statement that mankind will, contra optimists of the early 20th century, never learn to be leisurely and enjoy what it has earned. We’ll always find ways to spend our increasing incomes in increasingly large ways. It reminds me of that “law” by some economist, roughly stated: Mankind will continue to have improved living conditions while continually feeling worse off.

The second piece, less academic in nature, is this page from Women’s Day. From the 50’s onward, they have some inflation-adjusted numbers of basic household and woman-related costs. Again, vast improvements are made over time in nearly every category: annual income for single mothers, representation of women in the workforce, amount of house. The only ways it’s declined is in the amount of meat being consumed and the television usage has rocketed. But both of those declines are decisions made from luxury rather than want.

Also, in the WD piece, notice how resolutely unbelieving some of the commenters are. They’re peeved that someone would adjust things to inflation (gasp!). Things aren’t supposed to be getting better! Bushitler and Reagan put us both back DECADES! Your facts are ruining the NARRATIVE!

To such people, I quote thee:

“When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding.”