Consider this: In 1889, when Butch Cassidy robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colo. for $21,000, that cash could have weighed just a couple pounds, and would have nearly 20 times that value today, as far as spending power is concerned. In today’s dollars, Cassidy’s take was worth about half a million dollars—nearly a quarter million per pound of cash. Nowadays, a pound of twenties has about $9,000 in spending power. You’d need 55 pounds of cash to meet Cassidy’s 1889 take.
Inflation is a killer.
{ Hat tip: The Dish }