Country Musicians: Comparing money

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 09:06 PM

Wiki has a rather long article about how the Consumer Price Index is/was/might be calculated, but gives only one small chart, far down near the bottom, on historical changes for the US. Sources are linked for "data" for other countries, but comparison is a rather tricky business.

From the chart, the CPI ca. 1927 appears to be given as about 15, and the current era wanders about in the range of 200, so 200/15 = 13.3 gives a factor that could be used for rough conversions between the two time.

A reasonably consistent formula was used in the period 1900 through the early 1960s(?), and the BLS used to show a historical time line going back to about 1800. During, or in the near era of the Kennedy Administration inflation, BLS was pretty much ordered to "obfuscate" so the old formulas were abandoned, and since have been changed so frequently (without useful linking to prior methods) that comparisons over more that a decade are "apples to ardvaarks" sorts of things.

It has been suggested that one might compare congressional salaries for different eras, as they're about the only thing that "keeps up;" but the piling on of perquisites (not reflected in publicly known income) has obscured what a congressman makes so completely that even this kind of comparison is pretty hopeless.

John

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 08:53 PM

Vernon Dalhart bought a cadillac in the 1920's and he probably rivalled Peer with his royalties for "The Prisoner's Song," a song his cousin learned in jail from other sources.

It's really a version of Meet Me In The Moonlight.

They (and maybe Silkret) arranged it and the song reportedly sold 20 million copies (another inflated number thrown around by writers).

Richie

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 08:24 PM

Not sure how to do the calculations (inflation depends upon what you're shopping for)but Cousin Emmy claimed to be the first hilbilly singer with a Cadillac.

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 06:47 PM

At 32 times Peer was making equivalently 8 million a quarter or 32 million a year. Not bad for royalties.

Is this correct tho?

Thanks for your replies.

Richie

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 04:10 PM

No beer in 1926? Goodness, how sad! How about the gold standard then.
1926 US$20/oz
2007 US$730/oz
for a factor of 36.5

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: Amos
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 03:24 PM

Try a loaf of bread then, maybe a dime.


A

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: Peace
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 03:24 PM

This is from 1908-1914. What would it cost today?

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: curmudgeon
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 02:17 PM

True Dick, but there was no fixed "standard."

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 02:03 PM

It may have been illegal,but people were still drinking alcohol,and apint of illegal beer was not free.

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: curmudgeon
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 12:08 PM

In the U.S., a glass of beer was illegal in 1926.

Subject: RE: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 11:42 AM

You could apply the Beer Standard (B. S.) to this question. How much was a glass of draught in 1926? A nickel? How much today? Two bucks? That works out to a factor of 40.

Subject: Country Musicians: Comparing money
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 10:59 AM

Hi,

This has had me confused for years now. I've been reading "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?" The Carter Family Biography.

Here's my question: It says Earnest Stoneman earned $3,600 in royalties in 1926. What does that mean in today's money?

Is there a chart that compares money in different years?

In this equation the amount of money made in 1927 would be mutiplied 20 times to equal what it is today; 1927 X 20= 2007 Would this be close to being right?

So Ralph Peer was making $250,000 in 1928 off his royalties alone. That's a boatload of cash but what does it mean today?

Anyone?

Thanks,

Richie