It Use To Be Peanuts

I dunno...back in the 60's, I pulled green chain in a lumber mill for $2,10 per hour...thought it was good pay.

pwd72s said:

I dunno...back in the 60's, I pulled green chain in a lumber mill for $2,10 per hour...thought it was good pay.

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Sorting lumber was/is a tough way to make a buck. Too many trucks delivering and wood that is still wet... soooo heavy. Brings back memories

Hell it still can be. Many rooms have CHEAP daily specials. By a 6 hamburger and play free for 2 hours. 5 flatrate 7 to 7. Try and do anything else for that.

Some decent 30 cues are available. Pick up a free
Table off Craigs list. Prob a bar rag but some guys like them

$50 in 1940 is probably around $900 in today dollars with inflation and whatnot. not exactly cheap

really close:

Johnnyt said:

I think your way off on the $900 there, and I should have left it at $20.

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You can 'think' whatever you want, thats why there are inflation calculators.

Here is what $20 in 1940, 1945, and 1950 would be equal to in buying power in 2018.

Johnnyt said:

I think your way off on the $900 there, and I should have left it at $20.

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He was off by 40 cents. The purchasing power of your money is dramatically reduced, and inflation went up sky high.

The good old days are gone, thanks to Corporations buying the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomer politicians.

Library card is still free, chess board costs less than a mixed drink, deck of cards costs pennies, jogging is free, no charge for calisthenics and body weight exercises... punch a hole in a wall and toss some cornhole.

It ain't so bad. Less is more.

ideologist said:

He was off by 40 cents. The purchasing power of your money is dramatically reduced, and inflation went up sky high.

The good old days are gone, thanks to Corporations buying the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomer politicians.

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Median income in 1940 was $956. Figure a 40 hour work week at 52 weeks give you 2080 labor hours. 956/2080 = .46 cents per hour. So to buy that $20 cue, you had to work almost 44 hours.

Median income in 2017 was $56,516. 56516/2080 = $27/hr.

I recently bought a cheapo Action cue to screw around with, that I will end up giving to some kid somewhere down the line. I actually liked it so well I bought another one later. $44.89 is what I paid for it. Less than 2 hours labor, and I can pretty much guarantee you that its a better cue than what was being made in 1940.




So for less than 2 hours labor, a very nice playable cue can be had in 2018, versus 44 hours of labor in 1940 for a lesser cue.

Nostalgia is a helluva drug. :thumbup:

Chuck Fields said:

Median income in 1940 was $956. Figure a 40 hour work week at 52 weeks give you 2080 labor hours. 956/2080 = .46 cents per hour. So to buy that $20 cue, you had to work almost 44 hours.

Median income in 2017 was $56,516. 56516/2080 = $27/hr.

I recently bought a cheapo Action cue to screw around with, that I will end up giving to some kid somewhere down the line. I actually liked it so well I bought another one later. $44.89 is what I paid for it. Less than 2 hours labor, and I can pretty much guarantee you that its a better cue than what was being made in 1940.

So for less than 2 hours labor, a very nice playable cue can be had in 2018, versus 44 hours of labor in 1940 for a lesser cue.

Nostalgia is a helluva drug. :thumbup:

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Less than 2 hours of your labor, but 88 hours labor of the child who ran the machine that made that cue. Nostalgia indeed.

ideologist said:

Less than 2 hours of your labor, but 88 hours labor of the child who ran the machine that made that cue. Nostalgia indeed.

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There are several videos of the cue factories is China, none of which are staffed with children, and none of which need 88 hours to make a cue like this.

Here are a couple.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdmUxy8iyH8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ze9w1mRHTY

If you are just mad about manufacturing jobs being outsourced to China etc, you REALLY need to get over that one. Its been that way for decades, and no matter what any politician tells you, those jobs arent coming back.

I was a manual and CNC machinist/programmer, and apprentice tool and die maker when I was 20 years old. Went to vocational school 2 years in high school, and a year and a half afterwards. Co-oped at a couple of job shops, and was a mold maker for an art glass factory in Ceredo WV called Pilgrim Glass. Hell, while Im giving you my resume, I even won 2 regional and 1 state level VICA competitions in precision machining. I was the best student machinist in my area and state for a time.

Know what job I worked the bulk of my working life? Grocery store management for a major national chain.

Why? The 2 steel mills near where I grew up shut down. One reopened at partial capacity later after I left. The oil refinery there downsized, and sent their maintenance workers to the same trade school to learn how to machine the parts they needed. This was instead of hiring new machinists who ONLY do machine work, it was made into a kind of a double duty position going forward.

I coulda stuck around and worked at an auto shop turning rotors, boring heads etc. But I had no interest in being an overskilled worker doing a job you can teach someone off the street in a short amount of time.

I was pissed. I had an actual reason to be pissed. The job I went to school for was disappearing and/or changing in large part due to the economics of manufacturing. I got over it. You should as well. :thumbup:

Actually in the 60s you could buy a nice cue for $20

Rambro ,Paradise, Palmer,Brunswick Hoppe Style for $15

I bought a nice Balabushka in 1973 for $125

I bought houses for $4000 needing repairs and sold them for $12000

I bought a new Cadillac for $7000 in 1973

Today that Balabushka is worth $10,000