GMC

Inflation vs. Deflation: Pick Your Poison

In the 1960's my father bought a larg-ish three bedroom house in California for $30,000, his salary was roughly $32,000. I can't buy THAT SAME three bedroom house today for anywhere near my salary and I am in a job that is very similar to the job he held then, except that he was a civil servant, (i.e., paid at a lower rate than the private sector), and I'm in the private sector. It would take at least twice my annual salary today to buy the same house. And, with taxes much higher thn they were then it would actually take much more than double my wages to pay for the house - and it's 40 years older to boot! I don't think the representation of house prices in the chart is accurate of their "real" values.