Economy & cars circa 1959 - long

Ain't it a coinkydink? Just last night I was re-reading Phillip K. Dick's "Time out of Joint" and throughout you get glimpses of how things were then. I am going to excerpt some of the first chapter. Keep in mind this was published in 1959. I will add comments based upon some of the threads I've seen on this forum. Anything in brackets [ ] will be my comments. I am going to try to cut out story line just to make this a little shorter. I will use ellipses when I do that . . . Of course any typos are mine.

Oh and this is prior to the 25¢ loaf of bread, this is more on the 15¢-17¢ pricing.

"The store during the afternoon became almost deserted. Usually a flow of customers passe thru the check-out stands, but not today. The recession, Vic decided. Five million people unemployed as of February this year. [I don't know what the number is now, but since we have probably 10 times the population as then I am sure the raw number is larger, but I wonder about the percentage?] It's getting at out business. . . Fewer people than usual. All home counting their savings." [now it would be looking at their credit card bills.] . . .

"Anyhow I don't think there's going to be any depression; that's just Democratic talk [no matter how much changes, nothing changes] I'm so tired of those Democrats trying to make out like the economy's going to bust down or something. [I couldn't have said it better myself.]

Aren't you a Democrat?" he asked."From the South?" [Well some things have changed!]

"Not any more. Not since I moved up here. [I don't know where here is, but it's someplace in Yankeeland, not in Goodolboy territory] This is a Republican state, so I'm a Republican."

OBLIGATORY CAR STUFF:

"Late afternoon traffic, as always, was intense. But the Volkswagen sneaked through the openings and she made good time. Larger, clumsier cars seemed bogged down, like stranded land turtles.

The smartest investment we ever made, she said to herself. Buying a small foreign car. And it'll never wear out; those Germans build with such precision. Except that they'd had minor clutch trouble and in only 15,000 miles, but nothing's perfect. Certainly not in this day and age with H-bombs, Russia and rising prices." . . .

A loverly shiny red Tucker sedan sailed majestically by her. Both she and Sammy gazed after it.

"I do envy that woman," she murmured. The Tucker was as radical a car as the VW, and at the same time wonderfully styled. But of course it was too large to be practical. Still...

Maybe next year, she thought. When it's time to trade in this car. But you don't trade in VWs; you keep them forever.

At least trade-in value is high on VWs. We can get back our equity. . . .

[And then there's the neighbor who affects a loathing for TV and would even forgo a first warning when WWIII began and if they heard the "conelrad" warning on the TV. Haven't heard about a conelrad warning is forever. Lasagna was a new dish back then and so was expresso.]

HERE'S SOMETHING THAT HASN'T CHANGED

"But he'll get somewhere, he realized. The odd thing in this world is that the eager-beaver type with no original ideas, who mimes authority above him right down to the twist of his necktie always gets noticed. Gets selected. Rises." [isn't that called brown nosing now?]

TO GO ALONG WITH THAT 17¢ BREAD

The protagonist brings in $100 a week in income which is a lot more than the man he's living with brings in. The house, car payments, food and all bills totals less than $250 a month.

INTERESTING SIGN ON THE KIDS PLAYHOUSE

"NO FASCISTS, NAZIS, COMMUNISTS, FALANGISTS [?], PERONISTS, FOLLOWERS OF HLINKA [?] AND/ OR BELA KUN [?] ALLOWED.

Peter Egan wrote recently about how everything today costs exactly 10X what it did when he was in high school. And he's about the right age...

As far as the other stuff - the more you all talk about flounder, the more I appreciate what you know about cars.

I prefer to think of it the other way round. Stuff doesn't cost any more, the dollar is just worth way less. Things, like a loaf of bread still require the same amount of resources and effort to produce, it's just the value of a dollar had been decimated as our answer to everything is print more dollars.

(Yes, I know a loaf of bread is not made in exactly the same way as it was in the 1950's, but I think the amount of overall resources that goes into it are on the same order of magnitude. If anything as we've improved processes and applied technology things like bread should be cheaper over time if the Federal Reserve wasn't hell bent on destroying the dolar.)

Although, I like to thank the 1957 Suez canal crisis for without that event I wouldn't have my Mini. I wonder if that also played into the creation of the Sprite?

Anyone have a clue what some of those groups are on the kids' playhouse sign? I've never heard of a falangist. Sounds like a finger group.

I didn't remember the VW getting such a warm reception. We had an old Lloyd in about 1962 and by that time a lot of people were getting those little cars as second cars for the wifey so she could do the shopping but I remember a lot of people making fun of us for doing it.

From Wikipedia:

Falange Española de las J.O.N.S. (better known as Falange or Phalange) is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word Falange means phalanx formation in Spanish. This warlike symbol was chosen due to the militaristic nature of the party.

Hlinka Guard (Slovak: Hlinkova garda) (HG) was the militia maintained by the Slovak People's Party in the period from 1938 to 1945; it was named after Andrej Hlinka.

Béla Kun (February 20, 1886 – August 29, 1938), born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician, who ruled Hungary, as the leader of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, for a brief period in 1919.

Dang! I didn't know we had so much to be worried about back then.

It was good to be a kid.