journal features

today I did a bit of math....

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2011.04.15

It's occurred to me since I've been back that my salary is basically the same as it was in 1999. Twelve years ago.

And yet, everything feels considerably more expensive. Now, of course, I'm supporting two people who weren't in my life ten years ago, but I was semi-supporting a girlfriend back then by paying some of her rent and paying several of her car-related expenses. No, it definitely "feels" more expensive now.

I looked into the one reasonable measure of inflation that I could think of: the US official inflation rate. I kid, I kid. No; it's the price of gold. Given how corrupt the measurements of inflation really are, gold is the best measure I can think of. And it turns out that the year I was born, gold was at around $US44.50. That's the same year, 1971, that the $US officially parted ways forever as it turns out. Today the price of gold is $US1480. That's well over a 30:1 difference.

The difference between today and 2001 is aptly shown on this graph:

Just 10 years ago, gold was "only" worth $CA400. Which means that in the past ten years, my flat salary has actually lost 73% of its buying power. So .. wow.

Saved another $5 in TTC tokens by riding my bike.

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton