Carpe Diem points out that for a single console color TV's price in 1964 we could buy every appliance available to a modern home today.
Bottom Line: For a consumer or household spending $750 in 1964, all they would have been able to afford was a console color TV from the Sears Christmas catalog. A consumer or household spending that same amount of inflation-adjusted dollars today ($5,300) would be able buy able to furnish their entire kitchen with 8 brand-new appliances (refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, range, washer, dryer, microwave and blender) and buy 9 state-of-the-art electronic items (laptop, GPS, camera, home theater, plasma HDTV, iPod Touch, Blu-ray player, 300-CD changer and a Tivo recorder). And of course, even a billionaire in 1964 wouldn't have been able to purchase many of the items that even a teenager can afford today, e.g. laptop, GPS, digital camera.
Of course the sectors where prices have radically fallen are exclusively those with competitive and largely unregulated markets. By contrast, all of the heavily regulated and subsidized markets: education, healthcare, legal services, financial services and of course, government itself have all seen their real prices soar far, far in excess of inflation.
Hmm, I wonder why?
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