[HN Gopher] USD Purchasing Power in Real Time Since 2000
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USD Purchasing Power in Real Time Since 2000
Author : traviswingo
Score : 15 points
Date : 2026-04-07 21:27 UTC (1 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (onedollar.today)
| spprashant wrote:
| You know what, it's not as bad as I was thinking.
| kvuj wrote:
| For me it's the opposite. I am a bit surprised that inflation
| halved buying power since 2000.
|
| In my mind those level of interest usually come from the stock
| market or house appreciation, but I guess those are much faster
| (I seem to recall doubling every 8 years in the stock market
| and housing being a bit slower).
| xarchive wrote:
| It would be useful if you explain how you calculate it. I
| mean, if you just apply an degrading exponential function,
| anyone can do that on their calculator.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| I think the more interesting thing to chew on is how this
| will look over the next 25 years. The numbers will be...
| huge. 75k in 2000 is similar to 150k in 2026, project that
| out to 2050...
|
| Something feels like it'll give out, but I've felt that way
| for 8 years at this point and I haven't been correct.
|
| DCA and pray I suppose.
| jdlshore wrote:
| Rule of 72. For costs to double in 26 years, that means
| inflation was about 2.7-2.8%, which is pretty much where it's
| supposed to be.
| drbig wrote:
| As much as the notion of "Purchasing Power" is <macro>economic,
| thus perhaps having a greater chance of being related to reality,
| I've been wondering if - and how - could these long-term measures
| account for greater diversity and "scale" of "things money can
| buy".
|
| Nowadays if you're properly rich you can buy a seat on a sub-
| orbital flight. This wasn't an option in '00, no matter how rich
| you were.
|
| On the other end of the scale, for basic things a (really) good
| quality loaf of bread will always be cheaper in Poland than say
| up north from Oslo, Norway; whereas a USA-designed made-in-China
| laptop pretty much never did scale with the rest of the "CPI
| basket"...
|
| Point being: we sure do have numbers - what they really mean in
| practice is vague at best.
| vessenes wrote:
| The best example I heard recently was anesthesia. Costs less
| than $5 to make. Worth a lot more if you have surgery coming
| up.
| blindriver wrote:
| What is the calculation? And how can you calculate it 10 decimal
| points?
| nrclark wrote:
| This isn't very surprising. Typical US economic policy aims for
| 2-3% annual inflation. That counter shows an average 2.6%
| inflation across 26 years, which is kind of right in the range
| we'd expect.
|
| It's debatable whether this is good longterm policy - but it's
| been the norm in the US for decades.
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(page generated 2026-04-07 23:00 UTC)