An interesting news item came in over the transom this morning; not only was it an interesting bit of Alaska news (on which I keep a sharp eye for reasons that should be obvious), but it presented some interesting perspectives on how prices have changed in the last thirty years or so. That story had to do with an abandoned McDonald's outlet on Adak Island out in the Aleutians, which still had its prices listed.
Chris Luckhardt traveled to Adak Island, Alaska, where he discovered an abandoned McDonald’s — with a menu that hasn’t been touched since 1994.
Adak Island has a population of 154, according to World Population Review.
Here are the specifics:
According to the prices listed on the old-school menu, a Big Mac was $2.45, a Big Mac meal was $4.59, a six-piece McNuggets cost $2.35, a Happy Meal cost $3.36 and an egg McMuffin was $1.95.
Now, a Big Mac meal — which includes a burger, fries and a drink — has increased to $18 in some locations.
1994, to the gray-headed among us, doesn't seem like all that long ago, but then, our youngest two kids weren't even born yet at that time, and they are 28 and 29 now. But for a real eye-opener on just how much things have changed (somebody should set that to music), I can cast my optics back to 1979, when I took a job working at the Sporting Goods counter at the Woolco in Cedar Falls, Iowa. At the time, that store had been open for nine years, and it anchored one end of the College Square Mall; I counted myself lucky to have that job, making the princely sum of $2.90 an hour — paid in cash money every Friday — to stand around and talk about hunting and fishing all day. When I got a raise to $3.10 an hour, I reckoned myself well-off indeed. Sadly, that store closed in 1982, and a short time later, the area's first Walmart opened in that location, but by that time, I had moved on from retail work.
But boy! I remember the prices!
There were a couple of eating places in the College Square Mall in those days, but during my workday, I tended instead to hit Woolco's own Red Grille, taking advantage of my 10 percent employee discount. One of my favorite lunches was a patty melt with a side of fries, for which I paid $.79 for the sandwich and $.49 for the fries; add in a large Coke for a quarter, and that was lunch.
But then, at that time, gasoline (I'm going on memory here) in eastern Iowa was about $.79 a gallon, and a young fellow like me with an adventurous spirit could make a pretty good weekend on five bucks. It was around this time that I had my first serious girlfriend, and I had no issue taking her out to movies and pizzas on that hourly wage.
One of the better things about that last part is that this first serious girlfriend remains, to this day, one of my dearest friends; our youngest daughter is named after her.
Finally, in 1982, as the store was clearing inventory to shut down, the price of everything in the store was dropping 10 percent per week; when it hit the 30 percent mark, my former boss called me and informed me that there were three Marlin 336 rifles left in stock. I wasn't working for Woolco anymore by that point, but he accompanied me back to the stock room and let me choose between the three rifles; I picked the one with the best-looking wood, paid $150 for it, and it's still in my safe today.
Things have changed so much, and not all for the better.
See Related: Cost of Producing Goods Soars Into the Stratosphere — Three Times Higher Than Expected!
Jillian Michaels Delivers Some Reality to Bill Maher About Bidenflation—'Go Buy Some F***ing Eggs!'
Inflation has been much in the news lately, and for good reason. First, the COVID scare and later, the Biden administration's ill-advised "stimulus" horse squeeze dumped trillions of fiat dollars into the economy, and that's just bad economic practice; running up the money supply can't help but be inflationary. But it's important to note as well that price increases have always been with us, and it's not all due to bad economic practices by the government. Take automobiles, for example; the 1972 Gran Torino Sport I was driving in 1979 (yes, the same year and model that Clint Eastwood owned in the movie of the same name) was far less sophisticated than today's computer-controlled, fuel-injected autos, and that sophistication comes with a price. And, of course, the advent of home computers and the internet gave us a whole new universe of things to spend money on — something we never would have imagined back in 1979.
And now prices are going up again, in a round of inflation that reminds us older folks of the Carter years, and in a few decades, our kids and grandkids will be reminiscing just like this: "Remember when you could get a cheeseburger and fries for only $25?"
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
