price of dollars

You are confused, again! The difference between the thirty year Bonds that the Chinese have been buying, and the taxpayer money give to GM, is GM has paid back the money loaned to it, with interest, three years before it was due.

The Preferred Stock given to the Government, as collateral for the rest of the taxpayer money, will also be bought back by GM, at a profit to the taxpayers, when it goes public again. The US Treasury Bonds on the other hand will result in the taxpayers paying the interest due on the Bonds.

That is because the Chinese government is not allowing the Yuan to fluxuate, dummy.

You may be correct for a change but most of your "predictions" have proven to be wrong.

Again you are wrong. Although China has passed Japan as the worlds second biggest economy it is less than half of the 14 trillion dollar US economy

Actually inflation in the US is in check today. That will soon change, as trillions of dollars are added to the US nation debt, over the next ten years to pay for the new healthcare law, and the increased deficit spend by BO(ZO) and the Dims in Congress, according the HBO.

[1955]--15 cents "On that cold, cloudy first day of business 30 years ago, Mr. Kroc's No. 1 McDonald's sold $366.12 worth of 15- cent hamburgers, 19-cent cheeseburgers, 20-cent milkshakes and 10- cent sodas and orders of fries." "THE MCBURGER STAND THAT STARTED IT ALL," SHIPP, E. R., New York Times, Feb 27, 1985, pg. C.3 [1964]--15 cents "1964: St. Paul's first McDonald's restaurant opens, on Fort Road. A burger costs 15 cents. "

---Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) September 29, 2002

[1968]--18 cents Source: Value of a Dollar: Prices and Incomes in the United States 1860-2009, Scott Derks [Grey House Publishing:Millerton NY] 2009 (p. 643) [1972] We find several articles about a scandal concering the McDonald's food prices and the Federal Price Commission, no simple hamburger prices quote in tje New York Times. Sample here: "Quarter pounder priced at 55 cents." --"McDonald's Told to Reduce Prices," New York Times, June 3, 1972 (p.21) [1974]--30 cents

---Value of a Dollar

[1979]--38 cents "Plans by the McDonald's Corp. to lower its hamburger prices by a nickel drew plaudits Monday from the president's chief inflation fighter, who said it would save the firm's customers millions of dollars. The firm said it would do its part to fight inflation by instituting a 10 percent cutback in prices of its regular hamburgers and cheeseburgers at its company-owned stores. Effective Tuesday, hamburgers will drop from 43 to 38 cents and cheeseburgers from 48 to 43 cents."

---AP Newswire, August 20, 1979

[1984]--50 cents

---Value of a Dollar

[1987]--62 cents

---Value of a Dollar

[1990]--75 cents "'Value Pricing' resembles a department store's bargain basement. At McDonald's...The selections tapped for long-term price reductions are believed to include the plain hamburger, which now sells for 75 cents or more..."

---"Discount Menu is Coming to McDonald's As Chain Tries to Win Back Customers," Wall Street Journal, November 30, 1990 (p. B1)

[1991]--59 cents "The new "Low Down Value" menu will discount several key items to 59 cents, including the basic hamburger..."

--- "MCDONALD'S 'LOW DOWN VALUE' MENU," Dan Koeppel, Brandweek, 1 January 1991 (p. 10)

[1995]--85 cents

---Value of a Dollar

[1997]--$1.90 & 55 cents: "Burger price wars" "The Arch Deluxe didn't bring new customers into its stores, so now McDonald's Corp. appears poised to try something old -- price cutting. The fast food company will pitch a new promotional price-cutting scheme to its franchise operators in a video teleconference today. According to Dick Adams, the head of an association of McDonald's franchisees, the company has been "trying to convince its franchisees that it's the right way to go for a couple of weeks." The bait designed to lure customers through the golden arches is a 55-cent Big Mac, available only if purchased with a soft drink and french fries, menu items that yield relatively high profit margins. Normally the Big Mac sells for $1.90. At the new price, when a customer orders a small drink and small fries the franchisee would only break even, said Adams"

---"The 55-Cent Big Mac Tack; McDonald's Proposed Price Cut Represents a Reversal of the Arch Deluxe Strategy," Martha M. Hamilton,. The Washington Post,, Feb 27, 1997. pg. E.01

[2000]--89 cents

---Value of a Dollar

[2007]--89 cents

---Value of a Dollar [NOTE: the book Value of a Dollar includes both charts detailing both historic price and prices expressed in 2007 dollars.]

There is plenty of interesting information regarding McDonald's pricing strategies. If you need more information ask your librarian to help you find this book: McDonald's: Behind the Arches, John F. Love [Toronto:Bantam Books] 1986.

If you want to learn more about the global economic impact of McDonald's food prices you might be interested in the Big Mac Index maintained by The Economist.

You are confusing the cost of a regular hamburger with the cost of a Big Mac. A Big Mac is a particualr "premium hamburger" sold at McDonalds (two patties, a three layer bun, lwettuce, tomato, pickles, special sause, etc.). For sure plain McDonalds hamburgers started out at $0.15 as you reference indicates. However, the Big Mac is not a regular hamburger. Your are mixing unrealted facts in your arguement. If you want to argue that a regular hamburger cost $0.15 in 1955 and now costs $1.00, fine do that. But don't say that a Big Mac cost $0.15, becasue they were never that cheap. See

. From : "The Big Mac Index is published by The Economist as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and provides a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries. It "seeks to make exchange-rate theory a bit more digestible"."

Ed

See

The mai point is that things are getting more expensive. How much more expensive, how fast is a strange thing. In Zimbabve the inflation is somewhere along the lines of 1000% so people really see the paper deteriorate. In the US and most western world inflation is or has been 1 to 10% and same things happen as in zimbabwe. But in a slow inflation it takes longer. What is important is that interest you pay or get on money is depending on inflation. So if you get 5% interest and the inflation is 10% then you are actually losing money if you are the lender or you are gaining if you are the borrower. Unfortunately for may people they believed that price of houses would always increase. Excempels now show it is not so. A family bought a house for $400.000 and borrowed $300.000. Now the same house is worth $80.000 and this is or similar cases aare happening all over. The banks do not always foreclosure even if people do not pay because then the banks would need to write off the loans in their books. What will happen now is not clear. Will the inflation continue and the price of hamburgers and food continue to go up? Will the prices to start going down on hamburgers? A small inflation like 1% is better than higher numbers. It is also a lot better than deflation because then things start to get really ugly.

The big Mac was never 15c. That was the price of a regular hamburger and there was no Big Mac back in the day. In comparison when a McDonalds hamburger was 15c a new full size car was $2,000.

Today a full size car is $35,000

See

A postage stamp in year 1950 was 3 cents; in year 2008, it costs 42 cents (1,400% inflation = 4.74% per year for 58 consecutive years).

A gallon of 90 Octane full-service gasoline cost 25 cents in 1950; as of AUG 2008 it costs about $3.84 (1,536% inflation = 4.91% per year for 58 consecutive years).

A house in 1959 cost $14,100; as of AUG-2008, the median home price is $213,000 (1,511% inflation = 4.88% per year for 58 consecutive years).

A dental crown in year 1990 cost $200; as of AUG-2008, it costs $1,100 (550% inflation = 11.3% per year for 18 consecutive years).

Monthly government Medicare insurance premiums paid by seniors was $5.30 in 1970; as of 2008, it is $96.40 (1,819% inflation = 11.34% per year for 28 consecutive years; up 70% in the past 5 years);

Several generations ago a person worked 1.4 months per year to pay for government; as of 2008, the average person works 5 months per year to pay taxes;

In the past, one wage-earner families lived well and built savings with minimal debt, many paying off their home and college, and educating children without loans. How about today?

Based on that, what do you really think the real inflation rate is ? What ever it is, it is too high, and it is likely to get worse. Already, inflation has been positive for 52 consecutive years (since year 1956):

U.S. nation-wide debt has grown from 100% of GDP in year 1956 to 420% of GDP in year 2009, and money is being created as debt at a ratio of

9-to-1 of debt-to-reserves, creating a situation where 90%-to-95% of all money in existence exists as debt. Where will the money come from to merely pay the interest on that debt, when that money does not yet exist?

As the call-in show woman said "I dont know where Obama gets his money" I am afraid a lot of Americans display this depth of insight.