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<p>Jim Holland wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<br> Honestly, I am on bended
knee begging your forgiveness for even
<br>mentioning anything about inflation! I was just trying to put
things
<br>into a tiny bit of perspective.</blockquote>
<b><font size=+1>Please, Jim. This is not a topic to let drop.
Keep it rolling. You jumped, inadvertently, on a very good topic.</font></b>
<b><font size=+1>You were trying to put things in a tiny bit of perspective.
</font></b>You were simply trying mental gymnastics of comparing transit
costs to real estate costs. That is not an unusual response. You
were trying to make a simple comparison.<b><font size=+1> True. Your
thoughts simply needed more refinement but you were leading us in a good
direction and it can be the subject of perhaps a wonderful display for
trolley museums. Read on.</font></b><b><font size=+1></font></b>
<p><b><font size=+1>Frankly Jim, a couple of the most interesting books
I've seen in recent years detailed Mervin Borgnis's exploits as a motorman
in Allentown and Philadelphia. They picked up a topic that no one
else has tried. They told about what it was like to work for a living
on a front platform.</font></b><b><font size=+1></font></b>
<p><b><font size=+1>No one, however, to the best of my knowledge, has traced
how motormen and conductors, and other transit employees lived, both on
and off the cars. And I hope you'll consider running with the ball I will
throw out in the last paragraph.</font></b><b></b>
<p><b> </b> John Swindler worked since the 1970s in public transit
at an administrative level. I worked in labor statistics until I
retired in March. We often compare notes, and not just on this wire
... we talked at length last night. John is incredibly knowledgeable about
the lunacy of government funded transport. My favorite story was his about
a transit executive preparing for a board meeting by watching Three Stooges
comedies ... it was saying that business reality has no place at all in
transit any longer. Because of the operating subsidies and capital
grants, and increasing inefficiency, transit costs have increased 50 times
while the CPI has gone up 7 times since 1950. <b> This is critical
to our understanding. And I'm glad you did open the door. More
of us need to recognize what has happened.</b>
<p>I can give you some very quick comments on how we measure inflation.
Let me give you some background on the Consumer Price Index. Its
important because of all the wage packages and retirement links to it.
Trying to make cost of living comparisons over time can be a real problem
because the CPI is calculated using a standard market basket ... so many
eggs, so much beef, so much chicken, a certain percentage for owned housing
and another percentage for rented housing, and on, and on, and on.
The trouble is the market basket changes in response to changes in inflation,
and the Consume Price Index simply cannot easily measure those changes
on a month to month basis. The Bureau of Labor Statistics attempts
periodically to change the ratios of different components but there certainly
is some statistical error built into that. We can say, hypothetically,
that the CPI went up 2.5 percent in the last year but if 50% of the increase
was in one component, people will adjust, and because of that adjustment,
their actual living costs did not go up 2.5% because they didn't have the
money to spend on the increase. <u>Only the model went up 2.5%.</u>
The consumer actually took steps to change the make up of his/her market
basket. If orange juice changes drastically, people will drink tomato
juice. And so forth. By the way, taxes are not figured into
the CPI.
<p>We have CPI data back to 1913. Trying to make comparisons over
that period are problematic at best, and they get worse the farther back
we go. It might be more important for many of us to have a picture
of what was in the market basket each year back to 1913. I, personally,
do not know if BLS even has all that data ... it may be just the CPI numeric
output chart that we have.
<p>And the farther back we go, the worse those comparisons become.
If you try to make comparisons in income and expenses between today and
how people lived in Colonial times, it doesn't work. We know how
many pounds, shillings, and pence Virginia townspeople in Williamsburg
had in 1765, but it becomes incredibly difficult if not impossible tracking
that and consumption components up to today. It is sometimes much
easier to say that, for their pounds, shillings, and pence, they worked
16 to 18 hours a day and they had unairconditioned frame houses, brick
foundation, dirt basement, outhouse for a toilet, chamber pot in the bedroom
for use at night, candles, pewter, no hospitals, no refrigerators, three
chickens, a hog, a horse, and so forth.
<p>One of the more common questions I've been asked at both the Baltimore
Streetcar Museum and at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum is, "How much did
it cost to ride?" Its a very logical question, but simply saying
5 cents in 1902 doesn't give them any understanding at all. The usual response
is, "Gee, that's all it cost." I've had to add, "Yes, but the motorman
and conductor worked 12 hour days to earn $2.00 to $2.25 and that that
nickel was a very large part of their budget ... that the working man had
to work 45 minutes just to pay the fare to work and back. And that
if he took his family out in the evening, he had to work a half a day just
to pay the transportation. And his employer never gave him hospitalization,
dental policies, pharmaceutical plans, eye-glass insurance, paid vacations,
or holidays, and if he died at work the company might have given his widow
$10 and then castigated her for being imprudent in how she spent the money!
In 1902 we had no entertainment as we know it today ... vaudeville, opera,
and concerts were reserved for the well to do. The best that a laborer
could afford was a picnic in the woods with his girl friend or wife and
family. Maybe once a year he could afford to see the circus when
it came to town. The stores offered clothes, candles, yard goods,
newfangled sewing machines, shoes, paper, lead pencils but squandering
money on CDs, video tapes, records, expensive toys ... heaven forbid,
money wasn't intended for such frivolity.
<p>Now lets move up four decades. In the late 1930s, an acquaintance
of mine in Lancaster began taking a lot of railfan trips ... especially
long ones to Iowa for a who week to ride the DM&IC, FDDM&S, WCF&N,
CRANDIC, and the less well known Clinton, Davenport and Muscatine.
A year later he took long weekend to go on a fantrip on the Indiana Railroad.
Jim worked in a local umbrella factory ... made about $22 a week, which
was typical, supported a mother and high school age sister, and walked
1.5 miles each way every day to work so he could save the car fare for
a vacation trips. Those vacations consumed an entire month's wages!
Oh, yes, he and several other Lancastrians availed themselves in 1939 of
the See Both Worlds Fairs tickets that the American railroads offered for
$100. It was good on any route. One friend went from
Lancaster to Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, El Paso, over the SD&AE
to San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and home over the Milwaukee.
Jim used the SP - UP and the Milwaukee along with George Krambles and Bill
Janssen ... they rode the Sacramento Northern all the way to Chico too..
Oh, yes, they also got the short trip to New York as part of the deal.
These were major trips. That train fare was five weeks wages for
an average Joe. Hotel and restaurant bills probably cost more per day than
they earned in a day. The air fare today can be earned in most
people in three to five days!
<p>Fringe benefits, as we know them, evolved apparently after Franklin
Delano Roosevelt signed his signature to the social security legislation.
Ron DeGraw told me that his father first received any benefits as a P&W
motorman after World War II. I know my grandfather in Ohio retired
in 1955 with only social security and his savings ... he was a classed
as a "cabinet maker" in a chair factory, which was, at that time, a highly
skilled job fixing other's mistakes.
<p>Mr. Holland ... because you are working for Muni and know many operators
and perhaps even retired staff, I would postulate to you that what the
museum docents could use is a factual oral history that shows, for transit
operating, skilled and unskilled shop staff, how working hours, wages,
benefits, and life styles changed over time from 1890 to 2000. I
would hope that you might find this something you could jump into with
both feet. I can visualize a photo and artifact display (the latter
including soap boxes, pipes, tobacco, theater ticket stubs, uniforms, motormans'
friend,* and so forth) that shows how life styles changed over time.
This has the potential for a traveling museum display and a good book and
maybe even a nice video tape.
<p>We had a display at Arden several years ago that showed the tasks that
men do, but nothing that showed how they lived. <b>Is this something
Jim, that you would like to try? Any one else out there? There
really is a need!</b>
<br>
<p>(* a motormans' friend was a leather urine pouch that was strapped to
one's leg. It was used by operators whose employers allowed no time
for relief. )
<br>
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