Economic Progress since Howard Hughes in the 1960s

Back in the day, with two flatmates, we bought a VCR for about $1000.

videocassette recorder (VCR)

It was a remote control albeit this was connected by a cord to the machine – luxury

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo

These days, DVD players go for $50.

Cafe Hayek makes these wonderful elaborations about how ordinary people live their lives as well as the billionaire Howard Hughes did in 1965:

  • Hughes could afford to talk on the phone for hours to someone hundreds or thousands of miles away.  Even the poorest pays no long-distance charges even when making an overseas telephone call. There is Viber and Skype.

  • Hughes could afford to equip his house with a large screen, a state-of-the-art projector, an impressive sound system, and a film library filled with thousands of movies, documentaries, and television shows, so that he had a virtual movie theatre in his home.  Today, nearly everyone can buy a large-screen hi-definition television, a surround-sound speaker system, and download movies.

  • Hughes could afford to staff his kitchen with chefs from Thailand, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Morocco, Lebanon, and India. Today, such restaurants are common-place.

  • Hughes could easily afford to equip each member of his family with an automobile of his or her own.  Today it’s not unusual for a middle-class household to have one car each for every person in that household who is at least 17 years old.

  • Hughes could easily afford to holiday in a foreign country.  In New Zealand, overseas travel is included in living wage calculations.

  • Hughes could afford to fly to whatever distant locations he visited.  Air travel is now emphatically routine even for high school students.

  • Hughes hired servants to wash his dishes.  Today, automatic dishwashers are the norm.

  • Hughes could afford to equip his residence with an always-at-the-ready dark room so that he could take high-quality photographs and view them minutes later. People upload their photos and videos to Facebook and Instagram moments after they take them.

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