Point well taken, however costs for education remain mere abstractions for most folks, especially when an examination of costs related to essentials is more compelling. What Adam Smith observed nearly two and a half centuries ago still applies:
"Corn, accordingly, it has already been observed, is, in all the different stages of wealth and improvement, a more accurate measure of value than any other commodity or set of commodities. In all those different stages, therefore, we can judge better of the real value of silver by comparing it with corn than by comparing it with any other commodity or set of commodities."
Today the commodity price for a bushel of corn is $3.26-- a bushel of sweet corn is seventy pounds. There can be anywhere between 70 to 90 ears of corn in a 70 pound bushel, translating to a price of about $.046 to $.036 an ear.
Presently, in the Great Heartland, corn is selling in local supermarkets for $.59 an ear that averages about three quarters of a pound. In 1970, the bushel price of corn was about $2.00 and corn could be had at the market for about five to ten cents an ear. So, what exactly explains the marked difference between the nominal and real price of corn in the two eras? It wouldn't, by chance, have anything to do with the consolidation and monopolization of BigAg, retail, et al?
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Point well taken, however costs for education remain mere abstractions for most folks, especially when an examination of costs related to essentials is more compelling.
What Adam Smith observed nearly two and a half centuries ago still applies:
"Corn, accordingly, it has already been observed, is, in all the different stages of wealth and improvement, a more accurate measure of value than any other commodity or set of commodities. In all those different stages, therefore, we can judge better of the real value of silver by comparing it with corn than by comparing it with any other commodity or set of commodities."
Today the commodity price for a bushel of corn is $3.26-- a bushel of sweet corn is seventy pounds. There can be anywhere between 70 to 90 ears of corn in a 70 pound bushel, translating to a price of about $.046 to $.036 an ear.
Presently, in the Great Heartland, corn is selling in local supermarkets for $.59 an ear that averages about three quarters of a pound.
In 1970, the bushel price of corn was about $2.00 and corn could be had at the market for about five to ten cents an ear.
So, what exactly explains the marked difference between the nominal and real price of corn in the two eras? It wouldn't, by chance, have anything to do with the consolidation and monopolization of BigAg, retail, et al?
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