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Comment by knieveltech | Hacker News Reader

In theory. In practice, this has lead to collapse of rural economies, rampant poverty, and epidemic drug usage amongst rural populations. As to driving food costs down, that's trivially disprovable. Loaf of bread in 1950: 12 cents. Adjusted for inflation that's $1.26 currently. A cheap loaf of white bread costs substantially more than $1.26.

Edit: of course this gets downvoted, because econ gibberish is certainly more valid than observed reality.

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First, my local stop n shop sells a loaf of white bread for $1.29 and that's not even a sale price. Second the average income has gone up by more than inflation as well so you would expect the cost of staples to go up accordingly.

is that including the richest folks in the average or not?

my understanding is that other than the top 10% or so, average income is not keeping up with inflation

Median income adjusted for inflation, has been growing, albeit very slowly, for all groups, including the bottom quintile (+6.7%).

https://static.businessinsider.com/image/59bc19b538d20d7f378...

So you prove knieveltech correct, the price of bread has not gone down despite whatever productivity advances may have come about since then.

No because the average person can afford a lot more bread now than they could in 1950. But bread is not the best argument as it’s cheap to make even in the 50s. Go buy a roast chicken and compare that price and you’ll see a difference

Average income hasn't even kept pace with inflation since the 70's, go take a look at a graph of income inequality over time if you're curious where all those productivity gains went, you prove my point regarding no measurable drop in food prices (incidentally a loaf of bread is closer to $2.00 here), and would anyone care to take a crack at the larger criticism, namely total economic collapse of vast swaths of rural America or is "well, actually" over the price of a fucking loaf of bread the best HN can do?

You're the one that was calling the bread argument invalid and "trivially disprovable." Also, average income has more than kept pace with inflation since the 50s which is the arbitrary starting point that you chose in your first argument, but shifted to the 70s in this counter for some reason. That still doesn't help you as the avg income in 1970 was 10556.03 (39081 in 2017 dollars) and 50321 in 2017. (source https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/AWI.html)

He actually seems to have something of a point:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/92689-over-the-past-100-yea...

Note in figure 3 the gains since 1950 have been a lot less than from 1920 to 1950. 1950s and afterwards the gains have been a lot less.

A loaf of good-quality sandwich bread can easily go for $5, but cheap white can be had for around a dollar in most places.

Really?

The cheap loaves of bread in australia are $1 (that's in dollarydoos - so it works out to 0.71c in the US.) There's no state sales tax beyond that -- and the minimum wage is 18.93 dollarydoos (13.38).

Your observed reality knows the price of bread in 1950, the price adjusted for inflation, but not the current price.

It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?

A cheap loaf of white bread costs substantially more than $1.26.

Actually that's about exactly what it costs at Walmart. I wanna say it's $1.28 but I'm not 100% sure. Granted that's literally the cheapest loaf of bread you can buy not an average nothing special loaf of bread.

Food prices are confusing. Back in the UK I could get cheap loaves of bread for 55p ($0.71 at current exchange rate), while here in Berlin I see them for €0.59 in mid-range brands for a slightly smaller loaf that works out as $1.08 when adjusted for size as well as current exchange rate.

I know this isn't the point of this sub thread, but in UKthe prices are:

The cheapest loaf of bread I can buy is 36pence or $0.47

A 250 g pack of butter is £1.45 or $1.88

A 450 g jar of thin cut orange marmalade is 49p or $0.64

This is from Lidl.

And includes sales tax

And you don’t have to tip the cashier

Why would you want it to include sales tax. If the government is taking a cut of a transaction the people should be well aware of it.

It's somewhat anti-consumer for the price listed to be different to what you end up paying.

A receipt in Australia for example will display total:$10 including $0.90 sales tax. it is illegal to display a price that doesn't include it.

You can include the VAT on the receipt that the customer gets after paying. Most food in UK is zero-rated for VAT.

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