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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Paddy54, post: 2488513, member: 19250&quot;]I recall Gas being 17 cent a gallon&nbsp; back in 1970. I worked part time in high school at a shell gas station . That price was for Super&nbsp; Shell @ 100 octane &quot;leaded gas&quot;&nbsp; I also recall that from 1960-68 my tuition&nbsp; for a private&nbsp; school was $2.25 @ month . Milk was around 50 cent a half gallon.</p><p>A loaf of bread around .25 cents.</p><p>My parents&nbsp; first house a Cape Cod was $10,000 in 1960.</p><p>Now as we examine&nbsp; most of these items we are talking&nbsp; about&nbsp; a time where the price of gold was fixed at $35 @ ounce. Silver around 1.00-1.25 @ ounce.</p><p>We are talking an era where there was no EPA, Blue laws were in effect, a pair of Jack Percells tennis&nbsp; shoes were $5.25 @ pair . Unlike the pair your mother got you at the A&amp;P for $1.50.</p><p><br /></p><p>One needs to remember also the percentage&nbsp; of&nbsp; women&nbsp; in the work force was lower, less women drivers, most&nbsp; were stay at home moms.&nbsp; </p><p>There&#039;s&nbsp; hundreds&nbsp; of&nbsp; factors&nbsp; that have caused the dollar to loose&nbsp; its&nbsp; buying power.</p><p>One of the major ones&nbsp; I believe&nbsp; is the repeal of the blue laws.</p><p>For those who are not familiar&nbsp; with this term the blue laws were&nbsp; laws that no commercial&nbsp; business&nbsp; was open on Sundays . Most food stores closed by 9 pm on a Saturday , there were&nbsp; no Malls, well there was one the first Mall built in the US of A was in Glen Burnie&nbsp; Md 1959. But by the mid 60&#039;s they were everywhere. </p><p>But the repeal of the blue laws allowed business&nbsp; to be done on Sundays .&nbsp; Malls offered more goods to be had by all. </p><p>More goods meant women were entering the work force as more&nbsp; was needed to pay for all the new goods now available .</p><p>Revolving&nbsp; Credit another factor ,yes credit has been around a long time. But now each new store had its&nbsp; own. Then credit cards were being issued by big banks.</p><p>Stores hours expanded so customers&nbsp; could shop any day or time of the week.</p><p>&nbsp;There was no OPEC , so gas was cheap. Then it happen&nbsp; buying&nbsp; power started to slide downward. When the first gas crunch hit in 1972&nbsp; a used 1970 Toyota Corolla was worth double&nbsp; its new sticker price which was way under $1800.00.</p><p>So the down fall of the buying power of the US dollar was caused by a lot of factors. The biggest&nbsp; factor supply and demand . The more we demanded the more supply came for goods. The more we demanded the higher the prices went. Malls charged more&nbsp; rent &quot;over head&quot; for a business </p><p>to operate. More drivers meant more cars ,gas prices climbed to meet demand. Each factor chipped&nbsp; away the value&nbsp; of the buck. </p><p>One other point in the mid 1960&#039;s for a quarter&nbsp; and yes it was a silver .900 you could go to McDonald&#039;s&nbsp; get a burger,fries,and a milk shake.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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