Mad Men

I saw that, and it was hilarious. When that show first started, I didn't like the winks and nods to the 21st century, and they've tapered off, but I did like that one.

Then again, wasn't the apartment $29,000, with her earning $19,000 or so per year? Now she's pretty well-paid for the time -- with the CPI being about 6-7 times what it was then, it's like earning $120k now -- but what can a $120k-earner buy for 1 1/2 years' salary on the UES today? She'd be going all the way up into the Bronx for that square footage nowadays.

My mistake, I thought from the title of this thread it was about C0lumbia C0unty.

Those were the good ol' days, before we were awash in Eurotrash.

BTW if you want a breakdown on the 9.09% return on buying the apartment versus the 427% for adjusted inflation checkout the spreadsheet and the comps I uploaded here

- https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151558362840138&set=a.10150672040435138.414336.372208810137&type=1

Basically based on the representative comps it looks like this apartment price doubled every 11 years in the example.

oops obviously that's 4.27% inflation.

Did inflation require two or three gut renovations in the intervening years?

More likely, though, Peggy would have sold at a loss in the early-mid 1970s.

Peggy's boyfriend mentioned that he heard the West 80's were a little dilapated, but safe and a cheaper
location. He didn't want to live where Peggy wanted to buy. I wonder if that's where she will end up in a future episode.

We're only a few years from "The Panic in Needle Park" 1971

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNeN9ZU2CSM

Peggy's salary would be $127,088.71 in 2013, to be precise, based on the CPI calculator. Another way might be to look at WAGE inflation rather than price inflation. From that POV, she probably made a lot more on a relative basis.

HH income won't work because HH sized have changed, so I looked at per capita GDP as a proxy.

In 1968, GDP per capita was $4,532.12, meaning she made 4.2X that figure. So by that measure, she could live IN AMERICA AS A WHOLE (not necessarily Manhattan) like someone who make $220k per year.

OR - a HOUSEHOLD only needed to make $19,850 per year to be in the top 5% of HOUSEHOLDS in the US in 1968. It would need to earn $186,000 today.

Spectral, as I said.