Why Its Pointless To Argue With Global Warming Believers 2050

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Yes, let's compare minimum wages. In 1900, the minimum wage was $0. In 2006, it's $5.15 at the federal level, and higher in 18 states.

If we consult our handy historical income table:

The average per-capita income in 1977 was $5,785. You were making 4.3 times that much. If you were making 4.3 times the average per-capita income today, that would be $102,546 (a little more, actually, since that number is for 2004), on which I'm pretty sure you could afford a house, a car, and some investments.

In fact, adjusted for inflation, 4.3 times the average per-capita income in 1977 is only $68,434. In other words, someone making 4.3 times the average per-capita income can buy $34,000 more worth of stuff (in 2004 dollars). This is, of course, thanks to all the neat productivity advancements of the last 30 years.

Personal experience is not a subsbreastute for hard data, sorry.

Plastic... which didn't exist in 1900, and steel, which cost $700 (1998 dollars) per ton in 1900, and $520-ton in 2002. (It dipped much lower, but huge demand in the developing world has been driving it up.)

Or copper... $7,000 down to $1,500.

Or how about aluminum, which cost $14,000-ton in 1900, and $1,300 in 2002 (no, there's not a zero missing there).

Note that these prices take into account inflation, but do *not* take into account the fact that average incomes have grown *faster* than inflation. So, the difference in how affordable these commodities were in 1900 and how affordable they are now is *larger* than suggested above.

That innovation doesn't just make computers cheaper, it makes pretty much everything cheaper.

And by the way, that price for steel should tell you something -- most of the cost of a car isn't raw materials.

Wage growth has outpaced inflation.

-- "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law." -- George W. Bush in Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 28, 2005