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Let stick to TV's. 25 years ago, how many did you own? How big was their screen? How many channels did you get? How much did it cost? What percentage of your income did that represent?

Two, one large and one small. I don't remember what they cost or what percentage on my income it took to buy them. I don't remember how many channels were available ether. I do know that I only watched one TV and one channel at a time.

About 5 years ago I bought a TV with more features than I ever wanted or used. It died about a year and a half later. I replaced it with another new TV, again with so many feature it was bothersome. It died too - within six months. My next TV was bought at a garage sale and hailed from the late 1980s, still had more features than I needed and is going strong three years later. Turns out delicate TVs made in this century can't handle our frequent power outages.

I spend far more on books than I do on TVs. They cost more than they did 25 years ago, though they are still printed on paper and bound the same. The quality of the typesetting is diminished though.

What does this have to do with standard of living and how do TVs improve it? The basic technology, the ability to send pictures and sound through the air to a receiver was developed in the 1940s. Transistors were an improvement over tubes, and color over black and white, but the rest is all flash and dash as far as I'm concerned.

When I was married in the early 1970s, we lived in a large 1 bedroom apartment. We paid $150 in rent and that represented about 25% of our take home pay; my husband worked in a lumber yard and I worked part time as a student assistant for minimum wage at the college I was attending. The same apartment today rents for about $1,300. With our same jobs, we couldn't do it today and I wouldn't be going to school.

You said: Let stick to TV's. 25 years ago, how many did you own? How big was their screen? How many channels did you get? How much did it cost? What percentage of your income did that represent?
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Those are valid questions. Further, though, what percentage of people here had those things in 1971 as opposed to today? Part of the measure of standard of living is what percentage of people have the things that, when they first came out, were only within the purchasing power of a few. I won't, for example, buy a large plasma TV today (I could, I guess, but I am a tightwad). In less than 5 years they will be within reach of most people who want them.

One primary assumption of the "rich get richer while the poor get poorer" crowd is that there is a static "pie" to be divided, when, in fact, by marginally increased effort, everyone can earn more. The fact that a wealthy person earns more does NOT mean that that additional wealth was taken from someone else. Wealth CAN be created.

Let stick to TV's. 25 years ago, how many did you own? How big was their screen? How many channels did you get? How much did it cost? What percentage of your income did that represent?

I still watch one of those sets to this day, been in use almost that long, we bought a 25" Zenith System 3 console in early 1983 and it's been in use everyday since. It was made in December of 1982. The old girl is showing her age a little bit but she still performs. She does have cable channels, not al of them since they've added a few since then, but that's what convertor boxes are for and if I had to, I don't need cable. It cost around $650 then, sale price $550 IIRC, from Kaufmann's Department Store in Pittsburgh, now Macy's. The Zenith was made in USA in the Chicago factory Zenith had. I also have a 1970 Zenith 23" Chromacolor we've had since 1971, plan to get that into action, with some luck, I might just need a few tubes and fiddle with the convergence a bit. I as made in the same place as the 1982 model.

Sure, TV's are cheaper now, but they are maily BPC's (Black Pieces of Crap). Well, I do have a 1998 Zenith 19" color BPC, well, it is a good set for being a BPC but no match for the 1982 model. Still from 1983 to whenever, if we use either price, $650 or $550, we certainly got more value out of the set despite the higher price than a comparable model of today.

I know people who still watch their old "roundies" (old color TV's with the rounded screens from the 1950's and 1960's to this very day. I think there is one guy that I know that still watches a 1955 RCA Color set to this day. I'd love to have a roundie myself, I did have a chave to get a 1963 Zenith color a long time ago but I wsn't wuite into old TV's then, but that's for another time.

Let's see, 25 years ago, well, I'll just use 1983 for now, we had the two Zenith color setsmentioned above plus a 1975 RCA B&W 12" TV (I still have it) and today, I have a 1966 Sony B&W 9" set in my room that took place of the 19" Zenith BPC, it'd weird to run the Playstation on it. In addition, I do have my grandmother's old RCA XL-100 from about 1979/1980, I'm looking to scare some parts for as well as for the System 3.

So yeah, I could get by on old TV's and prefer it that way. I'd kill for a 1966 GE Portacolor for the Playstation although even if I get the XL-100 working that would fit the bill quite nicely.