used this CPI calculator to learn that $12.90 in 2000 would be $17.83 today. You can sometimes still get Ramshot powders that cheap, but most powder and primers have been driven up in constant dollar terms. Many industries do worse. Medicine, higher education, and of course government, have all surpassed the rate of inflation in dramatic leaps and bounds. Mathematically, if they keep that up without limit, after awhile the one that grows fastest, in absolute terms, will have all the money there is, at which point the rest of us will be bartering again, I suppose.
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[Uncle Nick, /QUOTE]
Uncle Nick, if that's based of the Fed.Gov's CPI, then it's unadulterated Bullsqueeze, and you Know it is, if you are paying attention: they constantly change the items they sample the retail prices of to calculate the rate of inflation (as I recall, the used the price of computer chips in the 90's to make inflation look more palatable, while the price of things working folks NEEDED kept rising) ....... doubt me? Whenever the cite the "CPI" on the news, they note "excluding Food and Energy" ..........