flips and gasmeters

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:21 PM -0500 3/8/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>... in the 1930s a man would work 12 hours of hard labor for a dollar
>
>I think it's possible to exaggerate the effects of inflation. No doubt one
>could eat lunch for a dime in 1940, just as one can for a dollar now. But
>one might have expected to pay more like 50 cents for a middle-class
>restaurant lunch then (compared with perhaps roughly ten-twenty times that
>much now)  -- as in this menu from Buffalo, 1940:
>
>http://www.ronrichardson.com/1940Menu.htm
>
>The prices look different from modern ones by a factor of about 10-15 ...
>maybe 20 if this was a fancier place. OK, even taking factor twenty ...

Great menu.  I could go for that Table d'Hote Dinner--starting with
the cherrystone clams and navy bean soup and then moving on to
perhaps the roast Long Island duckling with cherries, or if I was
feeling particularly flush and thought I could afford the surcharge,
the whole broiled lobster with drawn butter, followed by Pfeiffer's
famous salad bowl and dessert (wonder if I have room for that old
fashioned peach shortcake?) and coffee--for $1.00.  Or $1.10 if I
splurged on the lobster.  Sigh.

larry