So, just how good do we have it?

In our Independence Day post, we asked that we all have some perspective in this rough economy and reflect on how good we really do have it, historically speaking. This request was not greeted with universal enthusiasm and that’s O.K. because it resulted in some great information being provided from a very nice site and which is being liberated from the comment section (thanks, KT).

We don’t want to give away all the goodies but Carpe Diem provides this chart below showing the historical price of gas as a function of per-capita disposable income. Click on image to enlarge.



Bottom line: Reflecting an increased standard of living and increasing buying power of the dollar over the decades, the price of gasoline today, in order to equate to what it cost during the Great Depression, would have to be between $14 and $17/gallon!